8th international symposium on teaching english at...

8th International Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level

and

The 17th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

Conference Program

21st – 23rd August, 2012

Wenjin Hotel, Beijing, China

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Preface

8th International Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level

I have researched and taught English language and applied linguistics for over thirty years and it

gratifying to see how the subject has grown in world-wide importance and significance. At the present

time the subject has become very diverse and far-reaching, involving many aspects of human,

professional and intercultural communication.

At the heart of the discipline is our continuing investigation of what it means to learn and teach a

language. It is therefore especially pleasing to see how a symposium such as the Symposium on

Teaching English at Tertiary Level has grown in range and importance each year and is now in its

eight year. More and more students are learning how important it is for them to be competent in

English for both academic and personal communication in the twenty first century.

The range of topics covered by the programme is rich in potential for our better understanding of

teaching and learning English at tertiary level and underlines the need for us all to be alert to the

interface between research and classroom practice. It is my hope that more and more of us will

become committed to high-quality research in EAL, ESL and EAP, as this can only be for the

long-term benefit of our profession and, most importantly, for the benefit of our students.

Professor Ronald Carter

Professor of Modern English Language

University of Nottingham

England

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Preface

The 17th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics

We feel highly honored that we can hold the 17th Conference of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied

Linguistics in Wenjin Hotel, Beijin. Our Conference in 2012 is jointly organized by 8th International

Symposium of Teaching English at Tertiary Level (Tsinghua University and Hong Kong Polytechnic

University), Centre for Enhancing English Learning and Teaching at The Chinese University of Hong

Kong and Hong Kong Educational Research Association. We are very grateful to Professor Lu

Zhongshe, Professor David Qin, Professor Joseph Hung, Professor Barley Mak who have made every

possible effort in dealing with various practical local issues to make this conference successful and

memorable. I am sure that you feel welcomed by their hospitality.

The theme of the conference is ‘Challenges and Opportunities for English Language Education in

the Age of Global Economy’ which can cover any controversial topics in our profession. We have

received more than 150 papers. We had a screening meeting on the 12th of May. The acceptance

notifications were immediately sent by Dr Yusuke Kondo, Waseda University. This year, the length of

Proceeding papers was double-columned 2 pages, which stands for 4-5 pages in the standard format.

The deadline for the Proceeding papers was on the 30th of June. Dr Kondo has set up the Website

and edited the Proceeding papers in July. This year, Tsinghua University kindly printed the

conference programs and the proceeding papers will be distributed in the digital format on the

registration desk during the conference.

It is our great honor to receive Professor Rod Ellis as the Keynote speaker for this conference. He is

too famous in our profession to outline his achievements in this preface. Although his research

achievements are outstanding and too busy to spend time with us, he is kind enough to share his recent

research findings with us. Professor Ellis also offers Workshop for young learners.

The 17th Conference of PAAL is funded in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)

24320109, and Cross-Cultural Distance Learning Center, Waseda University for travel fees,

accommodation and honorarium for Keynote Professor and some other additional fees necessary to

run the conference. Since due to the space, the acknowledgements were omitted in our papers, we

would like to acknowledge that researches among graduate students and former graduate students at

Japan-side of PAAL (specifically at Waseda) were made possible by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific

Research (B) 24320109 .

Finally, as a convention chair, we would like to thank our organizing committee members:

Koichi Ano (Vice-co-chair), Yusuke Kondo, Norifumi Ueda, Eiichiro Tsutsui, Kazuharu Owada, Kota

Wachi, Masanori Oya, Satoshi Yoshida, Aya Kitagawa and Kaori Koizumi.

Michiko Nakano, Waseda University, Co-Chair, PAAL

Ho Han, Ajou University, Co-Chair, PAAL

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Timetable

Day 1: 21st of August

VIP1 VIP2 VIP3 Function Room

08:30-09:00 Registration

09:00-09:30 Opening Address

09:30-10:30 Keynote Speech: Professor Rod Ellis (Function Room)

10:00-10:30 Tea Break

10:30-12:00

Session 1-A Session 1-B Session 1-C Session 1-D

1-A-1

1-A-2

1-A-3

1-B-1

1-B-2

1-B-3

1-C-1

1-C-2

1-C-3

1-D-1

1-D-2

12:00-13:30 Lunch Break

13:30-15:00

Session 1-E Session 1-F Session 1-H Session 1-J

1-E-1

1-E-2

1-E-3

1-F-1

1-F-2

1-F-3

1-H-1

1-H-2

1-H-3

1-J-1

1-J-2

1-J-3

15:00-15:30 Tea Break

15:30-16:30 Workshop (Function Room)

18:00- Reception

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Day 2: 22nd of August


09:00-10:30

PAAL

Undergraduate &

Graduate Session

(9:00-11:00)

Session 2-A Session 2-B

2-A-1

2-A-2

2-A-3

2-B-1

2-B-2

2-B-3

10:30-11:00 Tea Break

11:00-12:30

Session 2-C Session 2-D Session 2-E

2-C-1

2-C-2

2-C-3

2-D-1

2-D-2

2-D-3

2-E-1

2-E-2

2-E-3


14:00-15:30

Session 2-F Session 2-H Session 2-J

Poster Session 1

(P-1-16)

15:00-17:00

@Lobby

2-F-1

2-F-2

2-F-3

2-H-1

2-H-2

2-H-3

2-J-1

2-J-2

2-J-3

15:30-16:00 Tea Break

16:00-17:30

Session 2-K Session 2-L Session 2-M

2-K-1

2-K-2

2-K-3

2-L-1

2-L-2

2-L-3

2-M-1

2-M-2

2-M-3

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Day 3: 23rd of August


09:00-10:30 PAAL Graduate

Session 2


Poster Session 2

(Q-1-10)

10:00-12:00

@Lobby

3-A-1

3-A-2

3-A-3

3-B-1

3-B-2

10:30-11:00 Tea Break

11:00-12:30


3-C-1

3-C-2

3-C-3

3-D-1

3-D-2

3-D-3

3-E-1

3-E-2

3-E-3


14:00-15:30

Session 3-F Session 3-J Session 3-K

3-F-1 3-J-1

3-J-2

3-J-3

3-K-1

3-K-2

3-K-3

15:00-15:30 Tea Break

15:30-17:30 Colloquium (Function Room)

18:00- Banquet

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Keynote speech

Session 1-A

Session 1-B

Session 1-C

Session 1-D

Session 1-E

Session 1-F

Session 1-H

Session 1-J

Workshop

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Day 1: 21st of August VIP1 VIP2 VIP3 Function Room

08:30-09:00 Registration

09:00-09:30 Opening Address

09:30-10:30 Keynote Speech: Professor Rod Ellis (Function Room)

10:00-10:30 Tea Break

10:30-12:00

Session 1-A Session 1-B Session 1-C Session 1-D

1-A-1

1-A-2

1-A-3

1-B-1

1-B-2

1-B-3

1-C-1

1-C-2

1-C-3

1-D-1

1-D-2


13:30-15:00

Session 1-E Session 1-F Session 1-H Session 1-J

1-E-1

1-E-2

1-E-3

1-F-1

1-F-2

1-F-3

1-H-1

1-H-2

1-H-3

1-J-1

1-J-2

1-J-3

15:00-15:30 Tea Break

15:30-16:30 Workshop (Function Room)

18:00- Reception

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Keynote Speech (Function Room: 9:30-10:30)

Theoretical Pluralism in SLA: Is there a way forward?

Professor Rod Ellis (University of Auckland)

SLA is a field of study characterized by multiple theories. In particular, debate has recently centred on whether

SLA should adopt a cognitive or social orientation. Such debates can only be resolved if it is possible to identify

a set of criteria for evaluating opposing theories of L2 acquisition. The purpose of this paper is to explore

different approaches to theory evaluation in SLA and to suggest that the very nature of SLA as an applied

discipline should lead us to accept and welcome theoretical pluralism. Nevertheless, there is one requirement that

any SLA theory must satisfy – it must account for ‘change’.

Session 1-A (VIP Room 1: 10:00-12:30)

1-A-1 Anxiety in Chinese EFL University Students at Different Levels in an Immersion Summer

Camp

Jing Huang

This paper reports a study on anxiety in Chinese undergraduate non-English majors at three different proficiency

levels in an immersion summer camp setting. By survey, semi-structured interviews, reflective journals and

classroom observations, this research revealed that (1) a considerable number of students at each level felt

anxious in the summer camp, (2) the more proficient students tend to be less anxious, and they tended to attend

more competitions and extracurricular activities, (3) the students felt most anxious when they responded to the

foreign teacher and volunteer or were singled out to speak English in theme lectures and theme practices. They

felt the least anxious during group work in class and extracurricular activities; (4) the students felt less anxious at

the end of the camp. Therefore, the research findings will contribute to the overall literature of research in this

field. Meanwhile, the study had practical implications for the teaching and learning in and out of the immersion

setting.

1-A-2 The Relationship Between English Learning Motivations and Devotion—A Case Study on

Tsinghua University Non-English Majors

Yuanchen Yang and Zhongshe Lu

This study explores Tsinghua university students’ motivation, defined as the process whereby goal-directed

activity is instigated and sustained, for learning English as a foreign language (EFL) and how it relates to their

persistence and performance in the learning process. Data were collected by distributing questionnaires to 220

non-English major freshmen of Tsinghua University. This research used Statistical Package for the Social

Sciences (SPSS) 14.0 to conduct factor analyses, reliability and validity analyses and regression analyses. The

analytical results indicated that 1) students’ English learning motivation was manifold, including two major types,

instrumental and integrative, and six subtypes; 2) test of students’ English learning devotion, measuring each

participant’s learning initiative and time, showed that 35.1% of the participants were highly devoted, 40.5%

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reported medium devotion, while 22.5% belonged to the low devotion rank; 3) integrative motivation, such as

the desire to pursue overseas educational experiences, was a positive predictor of students’ English learning

devotion; while instrumental motivation, which referred to studying with the aim of passing examinations and so

on, related negatively to students’ English learning devotion in general. The significant correlation spoke

cogently to the need for language pedagogy in China to address the motivational aspect of language learning for

the purpose of engaging learners and enhancing learning effectiveness. Directions for future studies were also

provided.

1-A-3 Project-based Application of Autonomous Learning Theory & Mode into ESP Teaching

Reform

Xu Li

ESP teaching will become the chief English teaching current in the 21st century. According to the scientific

principles of ESP teaching, we project group combined English comprehensive abilities development with the

basic knowledge grasp of civil engineering in science, reformed the college English teaching in science &

engineering university. In teaching mode, we adopted the theory & mode of autonomous learning to carry on

ESP teaching practice, and achieved better teaching consequence. The article firstly reviews relevant theories

about ESP and autonomous learning. Secondly, the article focus on the research contents of the project group and

reforming experience in previous period, aiming to illustrate by practical examples the practicability and

extensibility of the theory & mode of autonomous learning in ESP teaching. Finally the article sums up the

reform effect on students college English learning and teachers’ thinkings towards this reformed teaching mode.

Session 1-B (VIP Room 2: 10:00-12:30)

1-B-1 Foreign Language Writing Strategy Training for Minority Students—An Action Research

Approach

Wu Yong

Writing is taken as one of the most important basic skills in learning a foreign language. However, learners find

it so hard to compose a writing. This may be partially attributed to the absence of knowledge of FL writing

strategies. Previous researchers on FL learning strategies suggest that FL learning strategies exert a positive

influence on students’ FL learning and strategy training may help students grasp the FL learning strategies. But

the researchers focus on the skills of listening, speaking, reading. Studies on EFL learners’ writing ability are not

so flourished in China and abroad. Only few studies concern the relationship between FL writing strategies and

the FL writing proficiency. The present study attempts to investigate the influence of FL writing strategy training

on the FL writing proficiency of minority students. The action research is taken as the research method in the

study. The research is carried out in a natural classroom in which 49 minority students are involved. The whole

research lasts for a whole term, during which the students are given systematic and formal instruction on FL

writing strategies. The results reveal that the students improve their FL writing proficiency through one

semester’s FL writing strategy training. Besides, they attach great importance to the organization, paragraphs,

and sentences of a composition and apply the writing strategies in the three aspects in FL writing. However, their

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writings show little improvement in vocabulary and grammar.

1-B-2 Enhancing Students’ Professional Competence and Generic Qualities through Writing in

English across the Curriculum

Winnie Cheng, Aron Kwok, Patrick Lai and Margaret Taplin

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has a strong English support programme in which students study reading

and writing skills related to their discipline areas in their early years of study. The Writing Across the Curriculum

(WAC) project aims to supplement this by revisiting these skills and strategies through embedding them in

discipline subjects.

The focus is discipline subjects because evidence suggests that students need ongoing exposure to sequences

of writing assignments in order for their skills to improve (Ochsner & Fowler, 2004). At the same time, their

subject learning can be enhanced through effective writing activities (Zilora & Hermsen, 2007). Furthermore,

instructors in the disciplines are in the best position to induct students into the relevant writing practices and

appropriate genres of their fields (Shaver, 2006; Wingate et al., 2011). While this kind of writing provision is

undoubtedly important, “some teachers pay a high price for the success of writing across the curriculum”

(Smithson & Sorrento, 2010, p. 325) in terms of workload and extra pressure. Therefore one aim of this project

is to identify ways of giving students maximum support to develop their writing skills within subjects, but with

minimum pressure for the subject teachers.

The first one-year phase has been an exploration of effective strategies. This paper will present the case study

of one subject, Construction Safety, in which a series of supplementary activities supported the planning and

development of the final essay. It will report on the initial findings of the case study, including the teacher’s and

students’ views about the success of the activities.

1-B-3 An Experiment on Integrated Practice Writing Course Development—Based on the

integration of Moodle and Experiencing English Writing Resources Platform

Zhu Song

As one of the important aspects of the reform in College English teaching, the development of

Integrated Practice Courses attracts public concern, which extends the traditional Classroom English teaching

and lays great emphasis on enhancing language competence via practice and application. This research explores

the development of Integrated Practice Writing Course based on internet with integration of Moodle and

Experiencing English Writing Resources Platform. Moodle is a free Course Management System, which enables

educators to create effective online learning sites and provides participants with collaborative social learning by

doing hands-on activities, creating artifacts, and providing ongoing feedback to other members. Experiencing

English Writing Resources Platform contains tremendous writing resources such as courseware, correcting

compositions and error-correcting exercises with unique statistic function. Therefore, the effectiveness of the two

systems’ integration in Writing Course becomes the focus of this research. A one-year experiment was carried

out, and the comparative analysis on student compositions between those in paper form and those of e-edition,

and the compositions of the same genre between the pre and after tests were implemented, with the indictors like

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paper length, sentence length, word length, errors frequencies, error types, and composition scores, followed by

an interview. The result of the empirical study shows: 1) less errors can be found in the e-edition compositions

than those in paper form after the experiment; 2) significant improvement in avoiding grammar mistakes but no

obvious improvement at text level; 3) students' writing performance has been enhanced in idiomatic wording and

sentence structure.

Session 1-C (VIP Room 3: 10:00-12:30)

1-C-1 Animating Business English: Attitudes and Outcomes

C. A. DeCoursey

This paper explores the use of animation to teach Business English. E-tools continue to be integrated into

English for Special Purposes curricula. Animation is now used on company webpages, in digital product trials,

and in advertising - it is relevant to Business English. But is teaching a technical skill along with the ESP subject

knowledge feasible?. While virtual environments can facilitate language use (DeFreitas and Griffiths 2007),

some second-language learners respond to technical skills acquisition as cognitive overload leading to task

non-completion (Tyler-Smith 2005). For others, learning new e-skills creates a positive sense of self-efficacy

(DeCoursey 2011). This paper presents data from a study of 22 undergraduate students who were taught business

English via animation. The approach taken followed the Sydney School’s “situated genre analysis”, which

stresses intertextuality and the processes of construction, as well as the relationship between genres and their

communicative contexts (Hyland 2003, Belcher 2004). Appraisal system networks are used to evaluate

qualitative data, via CorpusTool (O’Donnell 2008), focusing on positive and negative realisations of feelings,

judgments and appreciations. Some longer examples of student responses are explored in detail. Animation is

shown to be a viable tool for teaching students Business English, given its strengths in exhibiting the

intertextuality of business communication, as well as dramatising, both for the individual learner and in the final

product, the processes and contexts of business communication. Using animation in Business English is

generative of clearly more positive than negative attitudes. Animation is a viable tool for ESP.

1-C-2 Reflections on Virtual Collaborative ESL Learning in Second Life

Li Lan

Modern technology has opened up more channels for education and promoting technological tools in e-learning

is on university agenda. This paper reflects on our three-year practice of using Second Life (SL) in English

courses at a university in Hong Kong. After a Virtual English Department was built in SL, the project team has

designed different learning scenarios and enabled applications such as peer assessment, exposition of student

learning outcomes, classroom teaching and international conference. As an additional hi-tech learning platform,

SL has aroused learning interest of the students and has prompted various collaborative activities. Whether the

virtual environment is effective for ESL learning? I-feedbacks, a questionnaire, focused group discussions and

staff interviews were employed to evaluate the project. The findings show a potential use of SL to allow students

to interact and collaborate online, to facilitate peer evaluation in a virtual class, to share information between

different parties, and to obtain more learning experience via 3D assimilation. However, shortcomings and

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technical challenges of SL are also reported. The conclusion is that the application of SL is more pedagogical

than technological. With more time and effort, with improved look and feel, information architecture, usability

and accessibility, SL can be an excellent supplement to various 2D resources in online knowledge construction.

1-C-3 Practical Explorations of Conducting Need Analyses for School-based ESP Teaching

Materials in Vocational and Technical Colleges

Shiqian Meng

On a basis of a literature review of construction of school-based ESP teaching materials in vocational and

technical colleges home and abroad, questionnaires and interviews, this paper stresses the necessity of

conducting need analyses from three sources: the students, the teachers and the enterprises in which the

graduating students practice and graduates work. A case study of one college in Shanghai is presented and a

model for such need analyses is accordingly proposed, aiming to promote the construction of school-based

teaching material in vocational and technical colleges.

Session 1-D (Function Room: 10:00-12:00)

1-D-1 Culture and Joke Appreciation

Xia Wu, Xiuming Song, Jian You, Hao Wu, Weijia Yuan, Danqi Yang and Shiying Lu

The paper studies joke appreciation from a cross-cultural perspective. Subjects involved in the study are Chinese

students and international students in Chinese universities. The research question is “How do cultural differences

influence the appreciation of jokes in cross-cultural communication?” A questionnaire survey of jokes is used as

the data-collection instrument. The subjects are asked to rate the funniness of the jokes on a five-point scale

ranging from (5) extremely humorous to (1) just a little bit humorous. A semi-structured interview is held to

provide deeper explanation for the data gathered from the questionnaire.

The rated funniness is used as the indicator of subjects’ appreciation of the jokes. Data from the

questionnaire survey are computed and analyzed.

Subjects are divided into different cultural groups according to their native languages. T-test is employed to

compare the funniness means across groups and appreciation models are set up respectively.

1-D-2 Applying an Intercultural Approach to College English Language Teaching in China

Shuoqian Qin

Our multilingual world challenges traditional language education and increasingly demands language learners to

interactive appropriately and effectively with other culture members. Successful language education is supposed

to equip leaners with sufficient linguistic competence with an aim to achieve their intercultural communicative

competence (ICC) (Byram, 1997, Guilherme, 2002). This is of particular importance in the current tertiary

language education of China. However, the teaching of culture in current English language classes often focuses

on general cultural knowledge. Most of the teachers have not reached the level of grasping the deeper meaning

of intercultural communicative competence, which limits their teaching and understanding to superficial cultural

content (Han, 2009; Zhou, 2011).

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The case study illustrated in this paper is to apply an intercultural approach to teaching English to college

students in a coastal city of China with an aim to develop students’ intercultural communicative competence as

well as language proficiency (communicative competence) through teaching and learning practice. The study

analyzes students’ development in critical awareness, contextual cultural knowledge and intercultural

understanding in a language course named Intercultural English Course with 32 undergraduate participants. The

syllabus for this course was designed particularly for this study and integrated intercultural knowledge and skills.

The findings suggest that intercultural language teaching (ILT) approach is an expanded and

further-developed ELT technique which creates more opportunities for language learners to raise their critical

cultural awareness and meanwhile develop their intercultural communicative competence (ICC). It could be

cautiously and critically applied to the college English classroom in the context of Chinese socio-cultural

environment.

Session 1-E (VIP Room 1: 13:30-15:00)

1-E-1 Bowling vs. Rugby: Conversational Styles in Conflict

Timothy Floyd Hawthorne

Japanese students generally find it very difficult to participate in group conversations with native (“inner circle”)

speakers of English. While much of this difficulty is no doubt due to the students’ perceived shortcomings in

language ability, there seems to be another dynamic at work. In many respects, typical group interactional styles

among Japanese appear to be significantly different from those of the average native speaker of English.

Some have likened Japanese group conversational styles to bowling. Each speaker takes a turn (gets his/her

ball) and generally makes comments that are in harmony with previous speakers (rolls the ball in the same

direction down the same lane). In contrast, some speaker conversational styles, including English, have been

compared to rugby. The speaker with the quickest, most clever and aggressive comments and replies (whoever

grabs for the ball the fastest and most skillfully) controls the flow of the group conversation, until someone

quicker, more clever and more aggressive joins in (takes control of the ball).

In this study, a class of low-level English conversation students completed a questionnaire in which they

were asked how they perceived conversation in general, with special emphasis on group conversational

dynamics. They were asked to compare these conversational situations to participation in various activities such

as: bowling, dancing, hiking, rugby, sumo wrestling, table tennis, etc., and to elaborate on the similarities and/or

differences. Then they were asked if their English classes shared these similarities, or how they could be made to

share them.

The results of the questionnaire were analyzed and evaluated as to their potential use in improving the

teaching of these conversational dynamics. Attention was also given to how students could learn how to adjust

themselves to these changing dynamics in the real world of group conversational English. Pedagogical

considerations were then summarized.

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1-E-2 The Preference of EFL Students for Error Correction in College-level English Speaking

Classroom–A Case Study in Dalian Polytechnic University

Zhongmei Li, Jin Qian and Jiahua Peng

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of an investigation of the attitudes and preferences to error

correction of EFL learners, thus fostering more effective error correction practice and other learning strategies in

the EFL classroom. Regarding EFL learners’ preference for error correction practice, two research questions

have been raised in the paper: (1) What are the preferable ways of error correction practice that students value

most in the EFL classroom? (2) Are there any differences between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of giving

corrective feedback as an effective means of teaching methodology? Classroom observations, questionnaire and

interview were adopted to collect data for the case study. After analyses, we found that the participants in the

survey showed a great tendency that any particular types of errors should usually be corrected by the teacher and

frequent corrective feedback was always welcomed and supported by the learners in the classroom. The students

wanted to receive more error correction than the teacher expected and some of them showed a preference for

error treatment even on infrequent and individual errors. Both the teacher and students believed that correcting

spoken errors after students completed the communicative activities could enhance both accuracy and fluency

since this allowed the students to engage in communication without interruption caused by error treatment.

1-E-3 The Effects of Classroom Oral Reading on Adolescent Japanese EFL Learners’

Grammatical Proficiency

Nobuhiko Matsusaka and Kanji Horiguchi

The purpose of this study is to discuss the effects of classroom oral reading on the development of Japanese

junior high school EFL learners’ grammatical proficiency.

The participants are three cohorts, the 2010, 2009, and 2008 enrollments (hereafter referred to as Groups A,

B and C respectively) at a private junior high school in Tokyo. At this school, students take an annual English

review test covering the previous year’s grammar points after the end of each academic year in the three-year

program. The syllabuses for the first, second and third years are fixed, and so are the review tests’ questions. As

for the teaching methods, Groups A, B and C were all taught grammar in a grammar-translation method, but oral

reading was frequently employed only for Group A.

The data analyzed in this study were the records of the annual review tests conducted after the three groups’

first year of learning (hereafter referred to as Test 1) and the review tests conducted after those groups’ second

year of learning (hereafter referred to as Test 2).

The results of Test 1 were Group A (n=287, M=69.9, SD=9.5), Group B (n=283, M=65.8, SD=14.2), and

Group C (n=304, M=65.9, SD=13.4). A Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance on Test A indicated that there was a

significant difference among the three groups (χ2(2) = 12.85 , p < .001). A supplemental Scheffe’s test (with

alpha less than .05) revealed that Class A performed better than the other two groups did. The results of Test 2

were Group A (n=282, M=47.0, SD=7.4), Group B (n=281, M=45.6, SD=9.2), Group C (n=303, M=46.8, SD8.1).

A Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance on Test B indicated that there was no significant difference among the

three groups (χ2 (2) = 2.05).

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The abovementioned outcomes of the analyses of Test 1 and 2 could suggest that although Class A’s first year

oral reading could have been effective, it was not as much effective in their second year learning. In the

presentation, it will be discussed why such differences occurred.

Session 1-F (VIP Room 2: 13:30-15:00)

1-F-1 The Role of Working Memory in L2 Listening Comprehension

Miki Satori

The role of working memory in L2 listening comprehension and its component processing was investigated. The

study also investigated the extent to which this role varies across L2 proficiency levels. 150 Japanese EFL

learners completed L1 and L2 digit span tasks, listening span tasks, L2 listening comprehension tasks, and a

battery of L2 proficiency tasks. The correlation and t-test analysis showed that working memory capacity was

related to both bottom-up and top-down processing in L2 listening, and the association between working

memory capacity and L2 listening comprehension was found to be stronger in the lower-level group than the

higher-level group. The main findings in the multiple regression analysis were (a) working memory (henceforth,

WM) capacity significantly predicts top-down processing for the higher-level group, and bottom-up processing

for the lower-level group and (b) L1 working memory capacity accounted for a significant 16.1 % of unique

variance in L2 listening comprehension for the lower-level group. The results indicate that WM plays a greater

role in controlled processing than in automatic processing of L2 listening.

1-F-2 An Action-Research Project on Task Selection for L2 Listening Teaching and Assessment

Fabian I. and Beltran R.

Second or foreign language listening instruction and assessment have been given little attention by researchers,

curriculum designers and policy makers. However, this language skill is widely tested at different levels and for

different purposes. Listening courses in a language program can pursue different goals, thus, this study draws on

the combined view of listening as comprehension and as acquisition (Richards, J.C., 2008); the former view is

based on the assumption that the main function of listening in L2 learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken

discourse, while the latter view gives listening a role in facilitating second language acquisition (SLA). This

paper reports on an action research project which aims to explore the extent to which listening tasks could

enhance SLA. Data from two classes of Chinese-speaking sophomore English major students will be collected

using classroom observation and video recording, document analysis, interviews and teacher journaling.

Implications for teaching and assessment are discussed.

1-F-3 An Analysis of Listening Tasks in Korean Middle School English 1 Activity Books

Hyun-Jung Kim and Unkyoung Maeng

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the listening tasks in Korean Middle School English 1 activity

books are appropriate for enhancing students’ communicative competence. For the study, twenty activity books

were selected, and all the listening tasks in the listening sections and the assessment parts were examined. For

data analysis, two criteria were used; one is the achievement standards and six listening performances from the

11

revised national curriculum, and the other is the classification of communicative activities by Littlewood (1981).

The findings were as follows. First, listening tasks did not evenly cover all the achievement standards and all the

six listening performances that the revised national curriculum proposed. Achievement standards 2, 3, 4 and 7

were mainly realized in the listening tasks rather than all the standards being applied evenly. Second, extensive

listening, selective listening and reactive listening performances were mostly implemented in listening tasks.

Third, the listening tasks were mainly focused on functional communicative activities. All in all, the results of

the study suggest that a greater number of various and balanced communicative activities related to the standards

should be developed in order to enhance students’ communicative ability.

Session 1-H (VIP Room 3: 13:30-15:00)

1-H-1 Integrated Knowledge of Subject-Verb Agreement and Objective Case in Chinese Learners

of English

Huang Wenhong

This study investigated whether Chinese learners of English demonstrate integrated knowledge of subject-verb

agreement and objective case in English. Following Jiang (2007), integrated knowledge was operationalized in

terms of the participants’ sensitivity to grammatical errors in an on-line self-paced reading task, as shown by a

delay while reading ungrammatical sentences. Two groups of Chinese learners of English at different proficiency

levels (one advanced group and one intermediate group) and one English native speaker control group

participated in two tasks: one on-line self-paced reading task and one off-line error detection task. The results

again confirmed the selective integration of linguistic knowledge in that objective case knowledge has been

integrated while subject-verb agreement knowledge is not in the two learner groups. In addition, there seems to

be an intricate interplay between language proficiency and the integration of morpho-syntactic features. Relevant

explanations and pedagogical implications are then discussed.

1-H-2 Lexicalized Sentence Stems Containing “V-ing” in Advanced Chinese EFL Learners’

Writing: A Corpus-based CIA Approach

Fang Xiucai

The paper investigates the features of lexicalized sentence stems containing “V-ing” in advanced Chinese EFL

learners’ writing by conducting a corpus-based contrastive interlanguage analysis (CIA). The learners’ English

corpus in this study is WECCL 2.0 constructed by BFSU in China and the contrasted native English corpus is

LONCESS designed by CECL of Louvain University in Belgium. First, a thorough concordance search of

“V-ing” in both corpora reveals a statistically significant overuse of “V-ing” by Chinese EFL learners. Second,

two other Chi-square tests of further categorized finite and non-finite verb forms of “V-ing” show an

insignificantly different use of the former while a significant overuse of the latter by the learners. Third, in order

to differentiate the use of non-finite “V-ing” by native speakers and Chinese learners, all the concordance lines

and some of their cotexts (when necessary) of the five most frequent forms, namely, living，speaking，being，

using and playing, are collected to form a mini-corpus and manually annotated according to such grammatical

functions as nominal including being subjects and objects, adjective including being pre-determiners and

12

post-determiners, and adverbial including various types. Fourth, Chi-square tests of the subcategorized uses are

conducted, followed by an exploration of reasons from the respects of mother tongue negative transfer, writing

theme and test context influences, and relevant SLA theories. Finally, the author discusses the research

applications in EFL teaching and learning, the scoring criterion design and dictionary or grammar handbook

compiling.

1-H-3 How Interaction Creates the Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs in Different Modalities:

Face-to-Face Classroom and Computer-Mediated EFL Classroom

Natsuyo Suzuki

A number of findings from classroom research have supported Long’s Interaction Hypothesis which claims the

benefits on L2 learning in relation to learners’ attentional process led by negotiation and outcomes with feedback

in communication (Mackey, 2007). However, there is room for exploring in more detail how interaction works in

L2 learning in diverse contexts in which it can be artificially created opportunities for foreign language learning.

This study investigates 1) effects of peer-interaction on L2 acquisition of phrasal verbs (PVs) in comparison with

face-to-face (FtoF) classroom where learners may interact directly without tools and computer-mediated

communication (CMC) classroom to find out 2) whether interaction creates opportunities for L2 learning in

different learning modalities and settings. To make interaction happen in classrooms, this study uses dictogloss

where learners are required to reconstruct a short text collaboratively for the task completion. In addition, to

create balanced interaction in terms of the level of knowledge between peers, the acquisition of PVs whose

meaning is opaque and unfamiliar to many EFL learners is examined. Loewen & Reissner (2009) reported that

the occurrence of focus on form in teacher and students interaction in FtoF classroom surpassed that in chatroom,

and how peer-interaction impacts L2 learning in different classroom environment has yet to be revealed.

The tasks are conducted in three EFL classrooms in Japan, two of which in a university (FtoF and CMC

classroom) where students study business, and the other in a compulsory foreign language class in a high school

where unlike university classroom settings students are quite familiar with each other to talk. Participants are

Japanese L2 learners, aged 17-20, and the level of the language proficiency is false beginners. In a CMC

classroom, each student can access online, also share the screen, and have conversation and chat with each other

taking part in a group work on computers. Prior to each data elicitation, a training as input is provided in a way

of drawing conscious focus attention (Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2006) to the target PVs to make enough

opportunities for learners to negotiate spontaneously. The development of the acquisition of PVs is measured

through data collected from pretest, post-test, and delayed post-test. Audio-recorded data of each interaction

during the collaborative task is described and analyzed. Implication of these findings contributes further research

on interaction and pedagogy in divers learning modalities for the future.

13

Session 1-J (Function Room: 13:30-15:00)

1-J-1 Investigating the Demands of Academic English in a Globalised Context: A Comparative

Case Study of Chinese Students’ Academic Literacy Needs

Zhongshe Lu and Xin Gao

In response to the globalisation of higher education in China during the past decade, the number of students

choosing to study abroad (SA) has increased significantly, especially within different modes; for example, they

are going abroad for shorter duration (i.e. exchange programmes for one semester), or pursuing degree courses

on Master’s and PhD programmes. Since most study destinations involve using English as the medium of

instructional language, from the language-learning perspective, this has had a great impact on the educational

experiences of Chinese learners because they are expected to bridge the gap between their original

Mandarin-speaking academic context and their English study-world with little difficulty. Thus, these

developments are posing new communicative challenges for students who have to not only adapt to learning in

English but also cope with the challenges posed by the demands and expectations of various academic genres

and instructional contexts.

This paper reports on a small-scale case study carried out with two student cohorts (short-term study abroad

and degree-programme abroad) to investigate (1) the demands of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in

different disciplines, and (2) the language strengths and weaknesses of Chinese students studying at a foreign

university where English is the instructional language. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the

findings for English language programmes and materials design in light of the changing scene in higher

education in China.

1-J-2 A Linguistics Discussion on Quotations in Thesis Literature Review: Making Text

Meaningful in Context

Francis R. Low

Writing a research thesis is a task which all students have to go through but producing an effective piece of work

is never been easy. A literature review, comparatively, carries a good amount of borrowed texts as part of the

review process. This paper is about how to make a borrowed text, quotations and/or references, meaningful in

context, namely literature review. In the beginning of writing a lit review most writers, including teachers, find it

difficult to move from reading a text to having something to say about it. Understanding and commenting on

reference texts in a precise and academic way requires skills which must be developed through producing it. Not

only research students, but also others who work with language, such as actors, journalists, literary critics,

historians, etc. have learned how to ‘get into’ a text, how to explore its meaning and , as a result, can talk

knowledgeably about the texts related to their work or topic of discussion. In most cases this linguistic ability is

never explicitly taught. This paper will discuss the relationship of text to context in more detail under the ‘text

typology’ approach proposed by Matthiessen.

1-J-3 Attitudinal Patterning in Effective MA Research Papers: Pedagogical Implications

Gail Forey, Marvin Lam and Cheung Lok Ming Eric

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Academic writing in English, especially construction of successful or effective academic papers, at a graduate

level can be extremely demanding. Writing effective research papers requires “a critical perspective… that

questions and evaluates knowledge” (Hood, 2004a, p. 5). According to a recent study in 2009/10, MA students in

the Department of English at Hong Kong Polytechnic University expressed concerns about the challenges of

writing research papers. This motivated the present study which aims to support academic literacy and to help

students be “adequately inducted into the expectations of their academic community” (Hood, 2004b, p. 24).

This focus in this study is on the lexico-grammatical features in the “successful” MA research-based papers

graded B+ or above. Evaluation and persuasion were found to be some of the key factors in these successful

papers. In orders to analyse persuasion we draw on Attitude from the Appraisal System (Martin & White, 2005)

as a framework to situation successful academic writing. We have data from 26 MA research-based papers. We

identify expressions of attitude, either explicitly or implicitly coded, in the effective papers, and discuss the

difference in distribution of the attitudinal values across the generic stages.

The aim of the study is to support the students’ needs in the requirement to successfully employ academic

literacy, particularly expressions of evaluative stance through effective attitudinal lexical choices. We aim to

shed light on what is meant by the term “critical thinking” in tertiary education. We will present an online

pedagogic resource, with materials on staging, grammatical metaphor, information flow, etc., which has been

developed as a result of the present study.

Workshop (Function Room: 15:30-16:30)

Workshop on Task-Based Language Teaching in Asian Primary Schools

Professor Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani (University of Auckland)

The global importance of English has led a number of Asian countries to introduce English in the primary school

despite the fact that there is no clear evidence that an early start results in higher levels of English proficiency.

The position we will adopt is that if the teaching of English is to succeed at elementary school it needs to move

away from the traditional structure-oriented approach and adopt a task-based approach. TBLT provides a basis

for providing young learners with the opportunities they need to develop a capacity to communicate in English.

If an early start in teaching English is to prove worthwhile, TBLT is the approach most likely to achieve this.

In this workshop we will first present the basic principles that inform task-based teaching and then illustrate

these by examples of task-based lessons for young children. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of the

problems that teachers and students often face in implementing task-based teaching and invite discussion of how

these might be resolved. We will also acknowledge a number of structural impediments and possible solutions to

these.

15


PAAL Undergraduate Session

PAAL Graduate Session 1

Session 2-A

Session 2-B

Session 2-C

Session 2-D

Session 2-E

Session 2-F

Session 2-H

Session 2-J

Session 2-K

Session 2-L

Session 2-M

Poster Session 1

16



09:00-10:30

PAAL

Undergraduate &

Graduate Session

(9:00-11:00)


2-A-1

2-A-2

2-A-3

2-B-1

2-B-2

2-B-3

10:30-11:00 Tea Break

11:00-12:30


2-C-1

2-C-2

2-C-3

2-D-1

2-D-2

2-D-3

2-E-1

2-E-2

2-E-3


14:00-15:30

Session 2-F Session 2-H Session 2-J

Poster Session 1

(P-1-11)

15:00-17:00

@Lobby

2-F-1

2-F-2

2-F-3

2-H-1

2-H-2

2-H-3

2-J-1

2-J-2

2-J-3

15:30-16:00 Tea Break

16:00-17:30

Session 2-K Session 2-L Session 2-M

2-K-1

2-K-2

2-K-3

2-L-1

2-L-2

2-L-3

2-M-1

2-M-2

2-M-3

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PAAL Undergraduate Session and Graduate Session 1 (VIP Room 1:

9:00-11:00)

Undergraduate Session

U-1 Topics Introduced in Revised Japanese Junior High School English Textbooks

Takumi Sato, Ayaka Yamada, Shiho Kanno, Eri Hasegawa, Mizuho Nihei, Sumire

Masamoto, Sayumi Hayakawa, Yoriko Ueno, Mayu Koike, Yuki Ando, Kazunari Takeda

In our seminar, we study about English education. We discuss various topics: what kind of English classes are

good for students and bad for students? How do junior high school students study English at school? What is the

best way to learn English? One of the important factors for English study is learning materials, that is, authorized

textbooks by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

The new Course of Study for junior high school was implemented this year. The number of words junior high

school students learn increased from 900 words to 1200 words. Moreover, the number of English classes

increased from three hours to four hours a week for all grades. This is the largest number of all the subjects at

junior high school. It produces the time for communication activities. The guideline suggests integrated teaching

styles of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. All the junior high school English textbooks have

been revised. The total pages of all the textbooks increased and they include more topics than before. We want to

know how these textbooks changed, especially, the topics that are used.

In our study, all the junior high school textbooks, three grades from six publishing companies were analyzed.

The number of the textbooks analyzed is eighteen, and all the topics from these textbooks were examined and

compared. At the 17th PAAL Conference, the contents students learn at junior high school will be presented.

U-2 What is an Ideal English Textbook for Junior High School Students?

Akane Ono, Chihiro Obata, Chinatsu Aihara, Chisa Kanamaru, Daichi Sakamoto, Mio

Takahashi, Misato Haga, Saki Shirasawa, Yu Wada, Yuka Mizuno

In our seminar, we study English education. In the 16th PAAL Conference, we reported that there are some gaps

between the present situation of English education in Japan and the purposes shown in the Course of Study,

which says communication activities are important. Also students want to take classes which include

communication activities for using English, and students think they can improve their communication abilities

through communication activities. We think teaching materials play very important roles in order to have many

communication activities in classes. Therefore, we decided to make a teaching material for junior high school

students.

First, a survey was done on teaching materials. We sent questionnaires to about one thousand junior and

senior high school students and fifty junior high school English teachers in Japan. We intended to ask the

students about the gap between the ideal teaching materials and their own teaching materials. As a result of our

survey, we found that teachers want their students to improve their communication abilities in their English

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classes. However, there are not enough textbooks which include many attractive topics for students.

Then, based on the results of our survey, we decided to make a teaching material that can be used for

communication activities in English classes. According to our survey last year, most students want to take

communication-based classes. In addition, if students use their familiar topics, they can be more interested in

English. At the 17th PAAL Conference, we propose some examples from the teaching material which includes

local topics such as sightseeing spots or traditional foods.

Graduate Session 1

G1-1 A Pilot Study of Self-Evaluation and Peer Evaluation

Yoko Suganuma Oi

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between student evaluation and teacher evaluation of oral speech

by addressing two research questions: 1) Does student self-evaluation show a stronger correlation with teacher

evaluation than with peer evaluation for three times within six weeks? 2) Does self-evaluation present higher

evaluation of speech than peer evaluation?

Osarsson presented six advantages of using self-evaluation: 1) promotion of learning 2) raising level of

awareness 3) improving goal-orientation 4) expansion of range assessment 5) sharing assessment burden 6)

beneficial post-course effects (Osarsson, 1989, pp.1-13). On the other hand, Cheng discussed that students had a

less positive attitude toward evaluating their peers’ language proficiency, but they scored their peers’ language

proficiency similar to teachers’ evaluation criteria (2005).

The researcher previously surveyed the relationship between teacher evaluation and senior high school

student evaluation of oral speech. The result of Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that student self-evaluation

was closer to teacher evaluation. Self-evaluation tended to be higher than teacher evaluation. On the other hand,

peer evaluation did not present any correlation with teacher evaluation at all. Even the students who had higher

English proficiency did not show any correlation with teacher evaluation. According to the result of

questionnaires about student evaluation, both teachers and students recognized the importance of self-reflection

and peer pressure. Above all students showed more positive attitude toward self-evaluation than peer evaluation.

Yet the survey was conducted only once, therefore more sustained observation is necessary to confirm the

effectiveness of senior high school student’s self-evaluation in terms of oral speech.

The data of the present research for the analysis came from the speeches of 26 Japanese senior high school

students. The researcher decided to divide one group for self-evaluation group and the other group for peer

evaluation group. Each group was composed of 13. Both groups presented the same mean score in Grade Pre-2

of English Proficiency Test.

The evaluation sheet devised by the researcher had five measures, from one to five. One group was asked to

evaluate their own speeches in relation to other students just after the speech. The other group was asked to

evaluate their peers’ speeches. At the same time one American English teacher and one Japanese teacher also

evaluated students’ speeches. All of the participants learned how to evaluate speeches before the speech. Two

teachers held a norm session to teach students how to evaluate speeches.

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G1-2 Incidental Learning: The reflection of the complexity from exposure to teacher talk in

TEFL classroom

Sho Sawada

This master’s thesis investigates whether the grammatical complexity in teacher talk can be reflected on that in

learners’ English. In this research, complexity of a sentence shall be measured in terms of the number of layers

of embedding in it.

The subjects in this study are 15- and 16-year-old students at a private boys’ high school in Tokyo. They are

members of two different classes of English, designated in this study as the experiment group and the control

group respectively. They are tested by the pretest to ascertain that there is no significant difference in terms of

the grammatical complexity in their English. Students in the experiment group were exposed to teacher talk with

sentences with subclauses embedded in them; students in the control group were exposed to teacher talk with

sentences with less embedding. The difference of number of instances of emmbedding in each teacher talk was

about 170 times. In both groups, the amount of time spent for teacher talk was around 90 minutes, distributed

over 16 meetings of the class (almost half a semester) The complexity in learners’ English was measured by

examining their writing: the proportion of the number of sentences with embedding to the number of all the

sentences produced was calculated, and the figures thus obtained were used as indications of complexity in

learners’ English. In order to control the level of the difficulty of the writing task arising from the choice of the

topic, the students in the two groups were given “The memory of the school festival” and “The memory of this

year” respectively as a theme for their writing. These topics can be judged to elicit a similar pattern of topic

development and a similar level of vocabulary use.

The results did not show the any significant difference. However, the small-size learner corpus built in the

course of the research will make it possible to examine learners’ use of structures involving embedding.


2-A-1 Learning the Limitations of the Reflector in Narrative from the Stylistic Point of View

Hui-Chun Chang

The goal of this study is to advance literature appreciation skills in advanced English language students through

the perspective of stylistics. Using theories from celebrated stylisticians including Michael J. Toolan (1988) and

Peter Verdonk and Jean Jacques Weber (1995) the novel, The Ambassadors, by Henry James is to be critically

examined as a quintessential example of the concept of the reflector. This prominent narrative style is a subset of

the stylistic concept of focalization. Through the text this theory of focalization, i.e. aspects of narrative seen

through the perspective of a narrator/character (focalizer), is critically examined to express the weaknesses

inherent in the style. By gaining an understanding of such weaknesses, students may learn when and when not to

use the reflector in their own works.

20

2-A-2 In Search of Truth by Argumentation

Yuncheng Zhou

This talk is to address the problems of what it means to pursue truth and how argumentation could help us arrive

at truth. The first problem is more philosophical, which is mainly concerned with understanding of truth. The

second problem is more practical, detailing the process of argumentation. In the final part, the discussion will be

focused on the general problem of what role critical thinking is supposed to play in liberal education.

2-A-3 On Saul Bellow’s Intellectual Heroes from the Perspective of Jewish ‘intelligence motif’

Wensheng Deng , Danli Su and Yan Wu

Based on the “intelligence motif” in Jewish culture, the paper explores the heroes of the novels written by Saul

Bellow. The authors hold that Saul Bellow repeatedly delineated his heroes, kind of intellectuals, for they are

embodied the Jewish intelligence motif and associated with Jewish intellectualism. And their similar fate and

character are shadowed by the collective unconsciousness of Jewish peoples.


2-B-1 A Tentative Study On Repair In University Classroom Discourse

Zhao Guanghui

This study is a comprehensive investigation on repair patterns in the context of Chinese university classrooms.

Repair is a common phenomenon referring to the corrective behavior of the trouble by the speaker himself or by

the listener. Since the seminal study of SSJ (1977), repair studies have undergone deeper and wider

interdiciplinary researches (Schegloff, 1992, 1998, 2000; McHoul, 1990; Seedhouse, 2004). But much is to be

learnt about situations in Chinese university classroom. Based on SSJ’s model (1977), this study puts forward a

refined new model to include some unexplored repair areas. The data are taken from the recordings and

transcriptions of two university courses. They are respectively form-focused and content-focused courses. It is

found that repairs in form-focused (or student-centered in our data) classroom are dominated by student’s

self-corrections; while repairs in content-focused (or teacher-centered) classroom are predominant with the

implicit repair initiated by the teacher. We assume that the self-corrected repair indicates the process of student’s

self-learning and self-improving. And the implicit repair in the content-focused class is the negotiating means for

the teacher to implement the pedagogical purpose to the students. The theoretical and practical significance of

the study will also be discussed at the final sections of the research.

2-B-2 Maximizing the Efficacy of Exemplars with Formative Facilitative Dialogue

To Kar Yan

Feedback is crucial for effective student learning. However, some students find it less useful than their teachers

expect owing to their little engagement with it and limited understanding of standards. Recent research suggests

using exemplars to enhance student engagement with feedback and their conception of quality. This article

explores how teacher-led and peer discussions of exemplars are used to develop post-secondary students’

understanding of assessment criteria before task submission. To achieve this objective, I did a piece of action

21

research with teacher-led discussion of two exemplars of a letter-writing task in cycle one and both types of

discussions of two videos of oral presentations in cycle two in my three English classes. Multiple types of data

were collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the action. A critical friend was invited to observe my lessons and

comment on the action. Open-ended surveys and focus group interviews were conducted to seek students’

opinions about it and identify suggestions for improvement. Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory was

adopted to reflect on my action and experience and refine the action for the next cycle.

The findings indicate the complementary roles of teacher-led and peer discussions in communicating the

notion of quality to students. Teacher-led discussion allows practitioners to share with students their

interpretation of criteria. Peer discussion helps create a supportive learning environment in which students can

clarify their misunderstanding of concepts with peer assistance. This study illustrates the importance of

formative facilitative dialogue with knowledgeable others in maximizing the efficacy of exemplar facility.

2-B-3 EFL Teachers’ L1 Backgrounds and the Characteristics of their Feedback

Yoko Asari

Over the past few decades, a growing body of research has been done on corrective feedback (CF); however, a

majority of these studies have been conducted with NS-NNS dyads (e.g., Han, 2002; Mackey and Philp, 1998).

In an attempt to conduct a similar sort of research in an Asian context, this small-scale study investigated

whether English teachers with different L1 backgrounds vary in the amount and nature of the implicit negative

feedback they provide to NNSs during a communicative interaction. Data were collected from 15 native

English-speaking teachers (NESTs) and 15 non-native English-speaking teachers (non-NESTs). The teachers

were paired with a student and were instructed to provide implicit CF whenever they felt that the students

required a correction. The research design was such that during the interaction, research collaborators who

played the role of the students made the same set of errors (including phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic

errors) to elicit teachers’ CF. The findings indicated that teachers’ L1 did indeed affect the provision of recasts:

NESTs’ recasts tend to be segmented, immediate, and consistent—traits that are strongly related to students’

repair (e.g., Loewen and Philp, 2006; Sheen, 2006). Furthermore, these traits allow the communication to remain

learner-centered, thus carrying out the primary function as a ‘focus on form’ strategy. On the other hand, implicit

negative feedback did not seem to be as user-friendly for non-NESTs: they reacted to errors less spontaneously

and left some errors uncorrected. While the usability of recasts from students’ perspective has received abundant

attention, it is also essential to examine CF usability from the teachers’ standpoint. Although further research

would be necessary to arrive at a more generalizable conclusion, the present study sheds light on the importance

of considering teachers’ background as a factor that affects CF.


2-C-1 Teaching Politeness: ESL/EFL and JSL/JFL Teachers’ Attitudes in Comparative Perspective

Kiyomi Fujii and Etsuko Inoguchi

The study reports on the differences between ESL/EFL teachers and JSL/JFL teachers’ teaching of politeness and

politeness expressions. Much research has been conducted in the area of politeness in language teaching. For

22

example, in an analysis of English language textbooks, Arai (2005) found that, although English (ESL/EFL)

textbooks published in Japan have slightly more content than those published in the US or the UK, politeness

strategies were not introduced as a textbook topic; the author suggested that textbooks should pay more attention

to politeness strategies and explicitly include politeness strategies as a topic. Conversely, Japanese JSL/JFL

textbooks teach politeness strategies more explicitly than do English textbooks. Nevertheless, the acquisition of

politeness is quite difficult for JSL/JFL learners and requires increasing sociocultural pragmatic competence,

which is acquired with difficulty even with explicit instructions (Cook, 2001). This raises the question of how

ESL/EFL learners are to acquire politeness if it is not introduced explicitly. The lack of such instruction can be

observed in Oyama, Morikawa, and Johnson (2009), who found that Japanese EFL/ESL learners, while

conscious of the need to use politeness strategies, didn’t know how to express higher levels of politeness.

The authors of the present study investigated how JSL/JFL and EFL/ESL teachers teach ‘politeness,’ and

their respective attitudes toward teaching politeness. JSL/JFL teachers exhibited a high awareness of politeness

usage and explicitly incorporate cultural aspects when teaching linguistic structures. On the other hand,

ESL/EFL teachers tend to focus more on content rather than explicit teaching of politeness expression, even

though they are aware of its importance.

Based on preliminary research, the authors conducted further research that included interviews with the

participants. The results show that teachers’ respective backgrounds affect the classroom instruction as well as

expectations of student performance.

Questions of how language teachers can address this issue and enhance their pedagogic approach will also be

discussed.

2-C-2 Bringing Selfs and Others, Developing Student-teacher Interaction

Jing Zhang

Identity emerging from discourse and organized by situation, genre, occasion, style or environment can signal,

unmask and resist the participants in interactions’ sense of self and consciousness of other selves in moments.

Furthermore, research on interaction tended to identify discourse features linked to the potential means of

providing the desired exposure to comprehensible input believed to drive the acquisition process (Block 2007;

Lantolf & Pavlenko 2000; Norton 1997, 2000; Norton and Toohey 2001, 2002; Pavlenko 2001, 2002, 2003).

Unfortunately, the issue of learners’ identity construction related to micro-analysis was not examined or

described in any great detail. Therefore, this case study sets out to understand how students construct their

proactive identities through student-teacher interactions in the classroom. Using Halliday’s systemic functional

model discourse analysis (Halliday 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1993, 1995, 1999,

2004[1993], 2005) and Goffman’s Frame and Face Analysis (Goffman 1972, 1981, 1986), the data was collected

through the instruments of video-tape and questionnaire. Overall the study evidenced that students’ multiple

identities including continuous-selfs-identities among the classroom (here selfs refers to several self-identities in

a moment) and discontinuous-others-identities from others in the classroom had been shaped through

student-teacher interactions. The analysis of systemic functional model and frame and face observed and

documented that students constructed their front, back and off identities, namely, general learner identity,

23

supporter, protester or resister and question-thinker, answer-seeker or dropout and imagined identity in different

student-teacher moments, which revealed that students’ multiple identities were constructed across time and

space. The findings of the study suggest that teachers should be sensitive to and identify students’ potential

identities, and then to develop effectively classroom linguistic techniques.

2-C-3 A Pedagogic Approach to Media Text Analysis

Byung-Bin Im and Jong-Hee Lee

The main purpose of this presentation is to sketch out a pedagogic approach to media text analysis with a

particular focus on argumentation tactics from the perspective of critical language awareness. In formulating

four-dimensional instructional procedures applicable to EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom settings,

elicitation is used as an analytical tool through a critical review of contradictory (positive vs. negative)

arguments on the approaches, objectives and validity of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To encourage

students to recognize the needs and values of critical language awareness, a detailed description and explication

has been provided by analyzing an actual persuasive media text, which is in line with the following CDA-based

instructional procedures:

(1) identifying the surface features of the text, which aims to describe a range of particular wordings (e.g., lexical,

syntactic, grammatical, metaphorical, genre-based) and other linguistic devices employed in an argumentative

media text together with its target audience to form a semantic representation of the text;

(2) exploring the multiple interpretations of the text, which aims to investigate a range of possible pragmatic

meanings of the text within their generic scope and limits by analyzing ideological implications in the text and

the interactive processes between the text’s production and consumption (e.g., the negotiation of meaning

between the writer and the reader) on the basis of textual facts and contextual factors, and to draw up the most

relevant interpretation among all possible ones;

(3) examining the rhetorical constructions of the text, which aims to investigate the ways in which frames and

topoi/loci are established as underlying tools used to work out specific rhetorical purposes in

argumentative/persuasive discourse, and to instantiate the appealing principles and the power of persuasion

generated by such rhetorical topoi/loci (e.g., content-related warrants, conclusion rules, logical structures,

argument mechanisms) in critical literacy perspective; and

(4) elucidating the ultimate goals of critical literacy instruction procedures, which aims to grasp social issues

underpinned by the linguistic features of the text and to enhance moral obligation and socio-cultural value

systems towards social justice in the central tenets of critical pedagogy by instantiating the normative extent to

which the constructive effects of the text supported by the writer’ ideologically motivated techniques with regard

to sociopolitical problems (e.g., dominance, power abuse, unequal power relations and other forms of social

inequities) can be manipulated and transmitted to the reader.

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Session 2-D (VIP Room 2: 11:00-12:30)

2-D-1 An Action Research into the Effectiveness of Language Learning Strategy Instruction for

Adult English Learners

Peng Mei

This paper explores how to implement effective language learning strategy instruction for adult English learners

in a tertiary FLT classroom. It seeks to answer three research questions: First, are there any changes of learners’

language learning strategy use before and after strategy instruction? And if yes, what are the changes? Second,

how can strategy instruction be better delivered? Explicitly or implicitly? In a integrated manner or a discrete

way? Third, how can we develop effective and practical strategy instruction to help learners acquire a foreign

language? Through three rounds of action research in which seven sessions of learner training workshop and

constant, integrated course-based instruction were carried out, empirical evidence was collected via the

instrumentality of questionnaires, interviews, learners’ regular written self-reports, teaching journals and so on,

the findings indicate that 1) the students in this study reported a statistically significant increase of the general

frequency of language strategy use over all SILL(The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) items with

2.95 at the beginning and 3.21 at the end of the study; 2) well-organized, explicit and discrete leaner training

workshops combined with frequent, implicit and integrated course-based strategy instruction are an effective and

helpful way to improve learners’ awareness and frequency of strategy use and to modify their selection and use

of leaning strategy, which can further foster learner autonomy .

2-D-2 Current Language Attitudes of Mainland Chinese University Students

Meihua Liu and Shan Zhao

This paper reports on an investigation of Chinese university EFL learners’ attitudes towards English and Chinese

in relation to their motivation to learn the language and awareness of their ethnic identity. 302 university students

answered a 22-item Language Attitudes Questionnaire and 112 of them answered four open-ended questions.

Analyses of the data reveal that the participants held positive attitudes towards English, were motivated to learn

the language, and valued their association with English-speaking culture and people, meanwhile considering

their native language superior to English. Thus the paper concludes that the students had a sound sense of

Chinese identity with an appreciation of the value of the English language.

2-D-3 Exploring the Ideal English Selves of English Majors within the Context of Globalization

Sun Lei

Globalization has made English a global language with a larger number of non-native speakers than its native

speakers. English is increasingly used for international purposes and people become realized the practical

benefits from being able to speak English. Even though they have fewer opportunities to be physically present in

a foreign country, people of different cultures need to learn and use English as an international language.

Enlightened by Gardner’s pioneering motivational theory involving integrativeness and instrumentality of

individual learners, Dorynei (2005)generated the L2 motivational Self System by conceptualizing L2 learning

motivation within a “self” framework with the aim to broadens the scope of the theory and make it applicable in

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diverse language learning environments in the globalized world. The ideal L2 self is the core of the construct and

refers to the representation of the attributes that one would like to possess concerning one’s hopes, aspirations or

wishes.

The paper is an attempt to explore the ideal English selves within Dornyei’s self-related motivational system.

By collecting and analyzing issues involving “My ideal self in English learning” from five selected universities

in China, a database on ideal English selves of English majors is to be built and ideal selves to be categorized.

Besides examining factors including the macro and micro learning environment as well as individual learning

experience with the ideal selves, the study also intends to figure out the relationship between the ideal selves and

learners’ motivational efforts and their learning achievements in a mixed research method.


2-E-1 An ESL Academic Writing Course—Description and Evaluation

Li Zhang

This paper introduces a course of academic writing for ESL learners in the University of Minnesota. It describes

in detail the course objectives, course materials, course design, and the ways technology assists course

instruction and learning. The description is followed by an evaluation of the course, which involves an

investigation of students’ opinions of the course by means of a questionnaire, a comparison of students’ pre- and

post-course writing competence through a paired samples T-test, and an analysis of students’ ideas about the

course by studying their reflection essays. It is believed that the course has achieved the goal of helping ESL

learners improve their competence and confidence in academic writing, which will enable them to cope

successfully with writing tasks at the university level. It is hoped that ideas in such a course can be applicable

and beneficial to EFL learners in Chinese Universities.

2-E-2 Tailoring Business English Courses to Meet Students’ Communicative Needs in the

Workplace

Mable Chan

In teaching business English courses, one of the pressing instructional challenges is how teachers can help

students see the link between workplace needs and curriculum design. Students are always concerned with the

‘authenticity’ and relevance of the courses they take. With more and more working adults taking business

English courses (e.g. postgraduate students), it is vitally important to find out how work experience facilitates

the learning of business English for students, through an examination of workplace discourse and the actual

communicative needs in different professions.

Data were collected from about 200 working adults in different professions in Hong Kong. A questionnaire

was used to examine the communicative needs for written and spoken English in the workplace and the subjects’

opinion about how work experience can facilitate the learning of business English. The findings bridge the gap

between English needs in the workplace and the design of business English courses, facilitating the learning of

business English on the one hand, and make students most preferred by employers in the workplace on the other

hand, as they have the necessary skills, proficiency levels and confidence required in the use of English in

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different communicative situations likely to be met both in a Hong Kong context and internationally, as a result

of having taken effective business English courses.

2-E-3 Expectations and Aspirations of Semester-Long Exchange students from Tsinghua

University: A case study

Meihua Liu and Wei Cai

Increasingly, tertiary-level students across the globe are gaining some form of international education; by 2025,

more than 7 million are expected to be educated transnationally for at least part of their undergraduate degree

(http://atlas.iienetwork.org/; www.oecd.org). In Mainland China, the number of undergraduates who join

exchange programs has increased significantly as institutions of higher education sign more agreements to

facilitate exchanges. It is specially so in Tsinghua University. Yet research on exchange students has been scarce.

The present study aims to document and compare the developmental trajectories (e.g., cultural, linguistic,

identity, personal) of semester-long exchange students at Tsinghua University with undergraduates who are on

the home campus for the semester prior to their own exchange experience. This process will identify individual

and environmental factors (constraints, affordances) that impact on outcomes and suggest ways to prepare/

support future exchange students to optimize the potential of stays abroad.

Analyses of the triangulated data of the present study yielded the following main findings: (1) the

participants joined the exchange program for various motivations such as improving English, experiencing the

host culture and broadening their views, and cultivating cultural awareness, (2) they held fairly high expectations

from the exchange experience. They hoped to benefit from the experience in every aspect such as enhancing

English proficiency, becoming more mature and independent, and interacting more effectively with people from

diverse cultural backgrounds, (3) they, to varying degrees, believed that the exchange experience would be

valuable to their academic and personal life and their future career, and (4) the majority participants had worries

and concerns about their stay abroad such as culture shock, classroom participation, intercultural interaction, and

language barrier. Consequently, the paper suggests an orientation or program should be provided by the home

university to prepare students better for their study and life abroad prior to their sojourn.


2-F-1 Exploring the Impact of Oral English Test Anxiety and Oral Communication Strategy Use

on Oral English Proficiency

Wenxia Zhang and Meihua Liu

It has been long believed that test anxiety and strategy use impact students’ test performance (Bialystok, 1990;

Cohen, 1998; McDonough, 1995; Nakatani, 2005). But how they affect students’ performance in real tests has

been under-researched. The present research explored the effect of Chinese university students’ oral English test

anxiety and oral communication strategy use on their oral English proficiency. And the following research

questions are as of particular interest:

1. What are the general patterns of Chinese university students’ oral English test anxiety and oral

communication strategy use during the oral English proficiency test?

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2. How does the students’ oral English test anxiety relate to their oral communication strategy use?

3. What are the effects of the students’ oral English test anxiety and oral communication strategy use on their

oral English proficiency?

493 (346 male and 147 female) students participated in the present study. With an average age of 20.95 and

an age range of 17 to 27, these participants were from various disciplines of a prestigious university in Beijing

such as Materials Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Chemistry, Law, Architecture, Psychology and

Information Technology. All the students took a school-based proficiency test in 2011 which consisted of a

written test (components included listening, reading, and writing) and a speaking test. Two students formed a

pair to take the speaking test an hour after they had finished the written test, which consisted of two parts: a

2-minute teacher-student conversation and a 5-minute student-student discussion. The students’ oral English

proficiency was evaluated from four aspects: pronunciation and intonation, grammar and vocabulary,

communication skills and discourse management, and overall assessment, all on a scale of 1-5. Immediately

when the students finished their oral English proficiency test, they were invited to fill in the 25-item Oral

English Test Anxiety Scale (OETA) (Gao, 2010; Liu, 2007) and the 32-item Oral Communication Strategy

Inventory (Nakatani, 2006), both on a 5-point Likert scale.

All the survey data were subject to statistical analyses by SPSS 18. For each measure, the mean and standard

deviation were calculated to determine the overall patterns of the students’ oral English test anxiety and oral

communication strategy use. Then, the students were categorized into low-, mid-, and high- proficiency groups

according to their final scores in the oral English proficiency test. ANOVA (Duncan’s) was run to explore the

differences in oral English test anxiety and oral communication strategy use among the three groups.

Correlational analyses were run to examine the relationships between the students’ oral English test anxiety and

oral communication strategy use. Finally, the relationship between the measured variables and the students’ oral

English proficiency were explored in terms correlational analyses and multiple regression analyses.

The major findings are (1) the participants reported to have moderate or even low general anxiety during the

test, be generally not anxious about test result, and be moderately or not anxious during the oral English test;

meanwhile they reported to have a moderate use of social affective, fluency-oriented and accuracy-oriented

strategies, strategies of negotiation for meaning while speaking, message reduction and alteration, and nonverbal

strategies while speaking, but a low yet to the upper end use of two strategies—message abandonment and

attempt to think in English; (2) the low-proficiency students reported to be the most anxious during the test and

worried about test results the most while the high-proficiency group reported to be the least anxious during the

test and worried the least about test results. Meanwhile, the low-proficiency group reported to make the least use

of social affective, fluency-oriented, and accuracy-oriented strategies, the strategies of negotiation for meaning

while speaking, nonverbal strategies while speaking, and the overall oral communication strategies, but the most

use of the strategies of message reduction and alteration, message abandonment and attempt to think in English;

it was just the reverse for the high-proficiency group. And the differences in all the scales between the three

groups were statistically significant; (3) OETA and its subscales were all significantly negatively related to the

OCSI and its subscales except the OCSI5 (strategies of message reduction and alteration), the OCSI7 (strategies

of message abandonment) and the OCSI8 (strategies of attempt to think in English). Alternatively, the more

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anxious a student reported to be during the test, or the more worried s/he was about the test result, s/he tended to

use less frequently social affective, fluency-oriented, and accuracy-oriented strategies, the strategies of

negotiation for meaning while speaking, nonverbal strategies while speaking, and the overall oral

communication strategies, but more frequently the strategies of message reduction and alteration, message

abandonment and attempt to think in English; (4) The OETA and its subscales were all significantly reversely

correlated with the different measurements of the students’ oral English proficiency—pronunciation and

intonation, grammar and vocabulary, communication skills and discourse management, overall assessment and

the final test scores. Social affective, fluency-oriented, and accuracy-oriented strategies, strategies of negotiation

for meaning while speaking, nonverbal strategies while speaking, and the overall oral communication strategies

were all significantly positively related to the English oral English proficiency measured in different ways, but

strategies of message reduction and alteration, message abandonment and attempt to think in English were

significantly negatively related to the latter; (5) overall oral English test anxiety, strategies of message

abandonment, social affective strategies, and strategies of attempt to think in English were powerful predictors of

pronunciation and intonation and overall assessment of the students’ oral English proficiency, that overall oral

English test anxiety, strategies of message abandonment, social affective strategies, strategies of attempt to think

in English and fluency-oriented strategies were powerful predictors of grammar and vocabulary, communication

skills and discourse management, and the final oral English test scores.

2-F-2 Personality Traits, Motivation and Foreign Language Attainment

Wenxia Zhang and Danli Su

The interrelations of personality and SL/FL learning have been a particular focus for some years (Ehrman &

Oxford, 1995; Verhoeven & Vermeer, 2002). As claimed by Dörnyei (2005, p. 29), personality factors are

‘heavily implicated in the learning process in general and in SLA in particular’. Generally they can act as

‘powerful modifying variables’ (2005, p. 24) which ‘shape the way people respond to their learning

environment’ (2005, p. 30). So has been motivation (Dörnyei, 2001, 2005; Gardner, 1985, Gardner & MacIntyre,

1991; Liu, 2007; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995). Situated in a Chinese EFL learning context, the present study aims

to explore students’ personality characteristics and motivation patterns with relation to their contributions to the

learning of English. An 88-item survey involving 934 first-year undergraduate non-English majors revealed that:

(1) the participants were generally moderately extroverted, moderately prone to become anxious and be

influenced by social desirability. Nevertheless, the majority reported to be dependent and tender-minded; (2) the

majority of the participants reported to be moderately motivated to learn English; (3) the personality traits were

significantly related to all or many of the motivation measures; and (4) most of the personality and motivation

scales were significantly correlated with the students’ attainment in English, among which, language requirement,

intrinsic motivation, psychoticism and lie were good predictors of the latter.

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2-F-3 Investigating the Underlying Factors that Impede “Good” English Learners from

Communicating in English

Rieko Matsuoka, Rie Tsutsumi and Kahoko Matsumoto

This presentation is intended as a summary of the sociological, psychological, and anthropological research on

Japanese English learners’ affective tendencies, notably the concept of “other-directedness.” The purpose is to

introduce an interdisciplinary grant-in-aid research project that will add further rigorous, empirical data to this

discussion of second-language learning in Japan.

As societies are becoming ever more globalized, it can be argued that sufficient English communication

competence has become a de facto condition for individual and community development (e.g., Jenkins, 2007).

Indeed, work on the history of English education in Japan has described a “modernization” project that, since the

emergence of the nation-state in the Meiji period, has included as a fundamental policy a focus on foreign

language study (e.g., Fujimoto-Adamson, 2006; Nishihara, forthcoming). Despite such a national educational

policy that requires most Japanese to study English, many domestic and international observers perceive a

society that is in general not communicatively competent in this foreign language (e.g., Poole, 2005). This

research project will investigate the social psychological and social anthropological factors which may impede

serious learners of English in Japan from being able to communicate.

Prior studies on English communicative competence (e.g., Matsuoka, 2009) indicate that Japanese society

seems to value individuals who project an attitude of “other-directedness.” Though there exists the possibility

that this “other-directedness” may function to increase individual motivation to communicate in English, we

posit that in social settings a sensitivity towards “the other” might increase communication apprehension and

concomitantly decrease the level of willingness to communicate. As social animals, certainly all humans

maintain a certain level of communication apprehension that is socially embedded. However, prior sociological

and anthropological studies have pointed out a special propensity for both “other-directedness” (e.g., Kuwayama,

1992, 2003; Maynard, 1997; Lebra, 2004), and a sensitivity toward seken (“the public eye”, e.g., Abe, 2003) in

Japanese society. This follows findings by psychological anthropologists (e.g., Lutz, 1988) that explicate the

flexible nature of human emotions depending on contexts, an argument that Markus and Kitayama (1991) also

make about learned cultural factors being instrumental in the formation of self and in the projection of emotions

in social situations.

Considering such sociocultural factors, our hope is that as applied linguists we may better develop effective

pedagogical strategies which might enable “good” English learners with both a proficiency and motivation that is

sufficient for communicating in English effectively.

Session 2-H (VIP Room 2: 14:00-15:30)

2-H-1 Beyond Courses: Toward an Integrated Learning and Teaching Experience of English

Debate in China—A Case Study of Tsinghua University

Wenbo Zheng and Liwei Wei

With the recent development of college-level debate tournaments around the world, the interest and need from

learners of English debate in China have become more evident and diversified than ever before. While trainings

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of debaters in China traditionally emphasize their implications for language proficiency, the focus has recently

shifted to critical thinking and analytical skills. While special courses are set up in a number of colleges and

universities to meet the pedagogical goals, extra-curricular projects might also offer valuable input into the

learning and teaching experience.

In the first part of the article, the current debate scenario in China will be presented with a focus on major

changes in recent years. In the second part, individual projects carried out at Tsinghua University will be

pinpointed as a case study, followed by a survey on feedbacks from the students. Following that, the advantages

of such projects will be explored. At the same time, it should be readily admitted that drawbacks of the

extra-curricular projects also exist, which will be the next issue in focus.

It is found that the combination of in and out-of-class activities provides a new avenue for acquiring some of

the knowledge and skills required by debaters. More importantly, group discussion and critical writing embedded

in this particular case study also motivates young learners in a profound way. To ensure the efficiency and

balance of the projects also calls for the awareness, will and competence on the part of supervisors and trainers.

2-H-2 An Empirical Study on the Application of Reflective Teaching to the Reform of English

Teaching Methodology Course

Yanhua Yuan

Reflective teaching has long been considered as the pillar of language teacher education and a goal for teachers’

ongoing professional development. It advocates that the teachers fully understand the theory and principles of

reflective thinking and systematically combine “learning how to teach” and “learning how to learn” in order to

improve the teaching efficacy and develop themselves as teacher scholars and teacher researchers. In view of

the present situation and the characteristics of the English Teaching Methodology course at the tertiary level,

this paper proposes the application of reflective teaching in the reform of the course and the preparation of

English teachers and proves with an empirical study that the application helps bring about the enhancement of

the quality of teaching and the preparation of reflective English teachers for the primary and middle schools in

our country.

2-H-3 Chinese Doctoral Students’ Perceptions of Developing Academic Writing Competence and

Academic English Writing Center

Weimin Zhang, Yushi Han and Eubin Shon

Despite the popularity of academic English writing centers (AEWCs) in native English speaking contexts,

establishing AEWCs specifically designed for teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) has not stimulated

much interest, especially in China despite its having the largest population of EFL learners. Few such centers

have been developed at Chinese universities and meanwhile, EFL researchers and educators appear to have no

sufficient knowledge about AEWCs and their importance in enhancing the academic English writing skills of

students. This study investigates Chinese university students’ perceptions of their academic English writing

competence and developing AEWCs in the Chinese EFL context. 99 PhD students were invited to participate in

the study. The techniques of questionnaire and interviewing were employed for data collection. Data analysis

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indicates that PhD students tend to have much difficulty in academic English writing, especially regarding how

to organize information coherently, how to use the genre of academic language in writing, how to synthesize, and

how to handle the sections of Literature Review and Discussion of a paper. Moreover, the participants maintain

that it is of necessity to develop an AEWC at a research university and native English speakers are preferred to

be their AEWC tutors. The primary functions of an AEWC, in the participants’ views, include proofreading their

academic papers and improving their academic writing skills. This research may have implications for EAP

teaching for Chinese graduate students and inspire more research interest in developing AEWCs in the Chinese

EFL setting.

Session 2-J (VIP Room 3: 14:00-15:30)

2-J-1 Fundamental Issues Surrounding Integrated Tests in Terms of Assessment Literacy–The

Case of Integrated Speaking Tests –

Kahoko Matsumoto, Adam Murray, Yuji Nakmura, Tomoyasu Akiyama, Kei Miyazaki and

Taiko Tsuchihira

As the high school course of study in Japan has directed toward integrated teaching and learning based on the

new guidelines of MEXT (the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology), some important

issues that arise are related to the difficulty of making valid, reliable and feasible “integrated” performance tests

(speaking and writing assessment). There have been various accessible teaching methods which combine input

and output in the fields of TESOL and second language acquisition, but little attention has been paid to the

assessment of achievements in such integrated skills courses. For instance, when a student does a presentation

based on some reading or listening activities, what aspects of the presentation should be treated as the exhibition

of reading or listening ability and how should his or her speaking ability be assessed? What kind of assessment

tool fits the evaluation of learning outcome of such integrated teaching? Facing this new requirement, high

school teachers seem to be either at a loss or simply following traditional ways by assessing different skills

separately. Also, university teachers who should guide them or train prospective high school teachers are not

well-equipped to address this demand. In fact, the new direction requires all English teachers to acquire more

Assessment Literacy on top of teaching skills.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss fundamental issues to consider when implementing a speaking test in

the context of an integrated language assessment. Problems will be raised and discussed from the following

aspects: a) literature review on the issues related to making good speaking tests; b) analysis of the speaking

section of iBT TOEFL® and IELTS®, focusing on the rubric, constructs and the procedure of assessment; c)

survey results of the present state of teacher training courses and teacher qualification examinations in Japan, d)

observation and responses collected at a prospective teacher training session on Assessment Literacy–Japan

Association of College English Teachers (JACET) workshops administered by its Testing SIG; and e) analysis of

a needs survey for in-service teachers.

Combining the insights gained and results obtained from these inquiries, we have arrived at a tentative list of

what teachers have to learn to meet the needs for creating integrated speaking tests. In conclusion, the paper will

suggest recommendations for including integrated test-making methods in teacher education with a view toward

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enhancing Assessment Literacy of Japanese English teachers.

2-J-2 Preparing for the Writing Tasks of Graduate School Entrance English

Examination—Stakeholders’ Practice as a Response to Test Task Demands

Shasha Xu

Teachers and students tend to tailor their instructional practices and language learning to reflect a test’s demands

when the decisions made based on the score is of great consequence to them. The higher the stakes of the test,

the stronger the urge to engage in specific test preparation practices that aim to enhance test performance. The

Graduate School Entrance English Examination (GSEEE), as one of the two compulsory sub-tests in the

National Graduate School Entrance Test battery, is a high-stakes English test in the People’s Republic of China.

The number of test-takers of the GSEEE has been on a steady rise in the past decade, reaching a record high of

1,656,000 in 2012. The overall concern of this proposed research aims to better understand test-takers’

preparation for the writing tasks of GSEEE, to investigate the strategies used by test takers and in what ways are

these strategies useful for test preparation and test performance from the perspectives of students, teachers and

raters. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be collected via questionnaires, focus-group discussions and

interviews. The appraisal of the GSEEE should never underestimate its testing impact and social consequences

due to the large number of test-takers and the examination-oriented tradition in China. The findings will

contribute to the ongoing washback studies of large-scale high-stakes language tests.

2-J-3 Strategic Learning Instructions to Enhance English Test Performance

Eunpyo Lee

This study investigates how differently the learners progress on the TOEIC when different number of pre-tests

and strategic learning instructions are provided to three groups by analyzing their pre- and post-TOEIC scores.

The subjects were 180 first-year medical students from 2007 to 2010. The data were their pre- and post-TOEIC

scores of both listening and reading comprehension. The three different classes of different number of pre-tests(1,

3, & 4) and strategic learning instruction groups were compared with the group of class 2007 who were merely

requested to take the test and submit the scores. The results reveal that more pre-tests and strategic learning

instructions provided, the higher score increase showed on the post-TOEIC, especially on listening

comprehension. It is concluded that explicit grammar and linguistic instructions, listening and reading

comprehension strategies can better enhance learners' performance on the standardized English test.

Session 2-K (VIP Room 1: 16:00-17:30)

2-K-1 Language Textbooks as a Presentation of Functionality of Language?

Nancy Guo

What is the role of textbooks in language education? What textbooks should be like if textbook designers take

functionality of language into consideration?

Functionality of language, as a principle that language is understood in relation to its environment, developed

by M.A.K. Halliday, builds on insights from Firth’s (1957) system-structure theory, Prague school linguistics

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(Danes, 1974), the glossomatics theory of Hjelmslev (1961) and from British and American anthropological

linguistic theories (Malinowski, 1923, 1935; Sapir 1949; Whorf, 1956). This paper starts with a historical review

of the importance of language textbooks, the role of textbooks in the field of second language education, and the

relationship among the development of textbooks design, syllabus design and curriculum design in language

education. By doing the review, this paper aims to explore how functionality of language was applied and to

what extent it was applied in the historical development of language education and textbook design. This paper

analyzes English textbooks used currently in both Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland to demonstrate the current

situation of language textbook design and to what extent the current language textbooks present functionality of

language. By discussing the analysis result and interviewing textbook designers, the paper also explores the

boundary strength between the context of institution and the context of actual using the language in students’

daily life.

2-K-2 Research and Design of English Textbook Evaluation Based on Readability and FAHP

Xiaomei Wang

To break through traditional empirical evaluation of English textbook, the authors put forward a novel model of

evaluation system based on readability theory and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) in this paper.

Readability theory is applied to analyze the language features of textbook. Delphi method and FAHP approach

are employed to determine evaluation criteria at three levels and weight each criterion. Scientific mathematics

method is used to overcome the subjective random in process of textbook evaluation, and add qualitative

analysis and objectivity. A sample test is conducted under the evaluation system.

2-K-3 English Textbook Analysis in China, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand: A Focus on

Wh-Interrogative Questions

Koji Uenishi, Yoshio Hosaka and Masaki Akase

This paper reports the simultaneous analysis of English textbooks from China, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

The motivation behind this work lies in the belief that these analyses shed important light on the classroom

content of teaching English as a foreign or second language. This study makes a comparison of the frequency of

the wh-interrogative questions taught in English textbooks in the above-mentioned countries. This paper focuses

on the textbooks at the primary and secondary educational levels in Japan and the ones (Book 1 to Book 5) at

primary educational level in China, Malaysia and Thailand. The aim is to analyze the corpora to identify some of

the differences among the textbooks and to explore the findings which reflect English language teaching

curriculum in Japan. Each textbook was first digitized and then analyzed in terms of the wh-interrogatives. The

results reveal the following:

1. In China and Thailand, new wh-interrogative questions are introduced in a well-organized way from Book

1 to Book 5 in the primary school textbooks and they are also regularly recycled.

2. In China, four interrogatives (i.e. what, where, how, who) are introduced in the first grade at primary

schools, while why and when are introduced in the second grade. Especially, in China the interrogative

question what is the most frequently taught in Book 2 to Book 5 among the four countries.

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3. In Japan, the wh-interrogatives failed to appear in an organized way in standard EFL textbooks. In Book 2

(6th grade) the new interrogatives (i.e. where, when) are introduced, while why and which are never taught

for three years. Especially, the which-interrogative is taught only in Book 4 (JH2) among the five volumes.

4. The wh-interrogative what is the highest frequency in almost all the textbooks in the four countries. Then

the second most frequently taught wh-interrogative from Book 1 through Book 5 is how in Malaysia, Japan

and Thailand, while in China where shows the second highest frequency.

Session 2-L (VIP Room 2: 16:00-17:30)

2-L-1 Local Grammars of phraseologies of Movement in Financial English

Susie Xin Sui

In financial settings, the language of ‘movement’ is closely related to risks and returns, and therefore of great

importance (Ahmad, Gillam, and Cheng 2005). However, the language of movement has seldom been studied.

The study tries to fill the gap by describing the language of movement in financial settings from the study of

phraseologies, so as to facilitate the students’ understanding of movement expressions in financial settings and to

raise their awareness of word co-selection.

The corpus-driven approach is adopted to study the word co-occurrences with ConcGram 1.0 (Greaves 2009)

in a corpus of annual reports with 1.27 million words, which is one of the 25 sub-corpora of the 7.3-million-word

Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC). The most frequent phraseologies that construe movement in

the corpus are identified. The local grammars (Gross 1993) of these phraseologies are then explored. Local

grammar, as it is described by Gross (1993), Hunston and Sinclair (2000), and Barnbrook and Sinclair (2001),

refers to a linear grammatical system that focuses on the functions and meanings of the language.

The phraseologies construing movement are classified into three semantic categories, namely ‘going up’,

‘going down’, and ‘unspecified movement’. It is observed that the phraseologies conveying the meaning of

‘going up’ take a larger proportion than those conveying the meanings of ‘going down’ and ‘unspecified

movement’. Findings of the analysis and comparison of the local grammars of some phraseologies from these

three semantic categories are reported in the paper.

2-L-2 An Investigation of Learning Transfer from a Chinese University EAP Writing Course and

Transfer Climate in Various Contexts

Wei Ran, Zhang Shuang, Wu Yanshuang and Zhou Yifan

A fundamental goal of EAP education is to stimulate learning transfer, which is defined as the impact of

“learning in one context or with one set of materials…on performance in another context or with another set of

materials” (Perkins & Salomon, 1994). However, learning transfer can be influenced by the learners’ perceptions

of features of their academic setting, termed as “transfer climate” in James (2009). This paper intends to explore

the learning transfer of EAP writing among Chinese students in three contexts: intra-disciplinary context,

cross-disciplinary context, and cross-language context, focusing on extent of transfer and the possible factors of

transfer climate that can facilitate or retard the transfer process. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and

writing sample analysis are used in the case studies of 13 undergraduates in a large, urban, research-oriented

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university in mainland China. The findings indicate that writing skills did transfer in all the three types of

contexts, but in various degrees, and diverse climate factors, such as instructional context, task similarity and

alternative support, contributed to this variation. Hopefully, this paper could offer teachers suggestions on

stimulating learning transfer and encouraging students to take full advantage of EAP courses in order to benefit

their writing in other academic contexts.

2-L-3 Students’ Participation in Construction and Analysis of Textbook-Related Corpus and Its

Application to Teaching of Advanced English Reading

Haiping Wang

Corpora and corpus tools have been implemented in a large range of pedagogical contexts. Quite a number of

corpus-based researches center upon collocations and grammatical structures, whereas few touch upon teaching

of reading. This paper explores a new corpus-assisted teaching method to facilitate students’ awareness of both

micro and macro text analysis. Students’ active involvement in construction of textbook-related corpus in

teaching advanced reading is central to the improvement of analytical and critical reading competence for the

upperclassmen of English majors in universities.

In the study, students in the experimental class are required to collect and tag texts through extra curriculum

reading which must match certain criteria teachers employ to construct the textbook-related corpus. Thereafter,

teachers give demos of text analysis assisted by corpus tools and corpus analysis methods and students follow

teachers doing text tagging and making presentations based on the tagged texts to demonstrate their analytical

and critical reading abilities. Teachers guide students and give prompt and effective feedbacks during the whole

process of corpus construction and teaching.

Finally, quantitative data from pre-test and post-test results of the experimental class and control class and

qualitative data from face-to-face interviews will be collected. Both qualitative and quantitative data demonstrate

open-ended corpus construction and corpus analysis methods are advantageous to improvement of students’

interest and self-management level in reading and hence their reading skills.

Session 2-M (VIP Room 3: 16:00-17:30)

2-M-1 A Method for Reducing Burden Imposed on Human Raters in the Construction of

Automated Scoring Systems for Second Language Learners' Speech

Yusuke Kondo

Attempts have been made to construct automated scoring systems for second language learners’ speech. As the

basis of these systems, the relationship is investigated between the scores by human raters and speech

characteristics that are measurable by computer in order to obtain prediction formulae: Once we obtain the

formulae, examinees’ scores can be predicted by speech characteristics. Although the computerized assessment is

proposed as one of the solutions to reduce the raters’ burden, this initial stage of the system construction requires

a large amount of learners’ speech data with the scores given by human raters. To solve this problem, this study

proposes a method for predicting the scores of a large set of speech data by a small set of speech data scored by

human raters. The speeches used in the present study are read-aloud speeches given by 101 Asian learners of

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English, all of which were scored by trained human raters and were categorized into three levels: A, B and C. In

this data set, the relationship has been investigated between the score and the speech characteristics: the two

speech characteristics, the indices of speech rate and rhythm, were found to be statistically significant predictors

of the scores. Using the two speech characteristics of ten speeches randomly selected from each level, the scores

of the remaining 91 speeches are predicted, based on Expectation-Maximum algorithm, which requires two

default values: mean and standard deviation. In this procedure, posterior probabilities, which are probability that

a speech is categorized into A, B and C, are given to each speech, and the level of a speech is decided by

comparing three posterior probabilities: if a speech obtains .23 for A, .66 for B and .11 for C as their respective

posterior probabilities, then the speech is categorized into level B. The study compares two methods for

calculating the two default values and investigates the prediction accuracy of the scores.

2-M-2 A Study on the Washback Effects of TEM8—from the Perspective of Experts and School

Administrators

Qian Xu

Washback is the effect of testing on teaching and learning, and important tests are believed to have intense

washback effects. Therefore, Test for English Majors-Grade 8 (TEM8), a nationwide test to measure the

language proficiency of undergraduate English majors in China, is supposed to exert influence on college

English teaching and learning. The present study attempts to investigate experts’ and school administrators’

perceptions of TEM8 and its washback, as well as the impact of TEM8 on the school curriculum, course design

and classroom teaching. Two questionnaire surveys have been conducted among five experts (TEM8 test

constructors and Teaching Syllabus designers) and 724 school administrators (Deans of English Department and

Directors in charge of English teaching). The research findings mainly cover four areas: (1) the quality of TEM8;

(2) the decisions to be made based on TEM8 results; (3) the washback of TEM8; and (4) other factors affecting

English teaching. The results indicate a positive attitude towards TEM8, both to its quality and administration.

However, besides the intended decisions of measuring students’ language proficiency and providing feedback,

TEM8 results have been used to make some unintended decisions, such as conferring degrees and ranking

universities, which may lead to some negative influence. The findings also show that the washback effects of

TEM8 on college English teaching are limited and other factors, such as teachers’ professional knowledge and

students’ efforts, are believed to contribute more to the teaching effects.

2-M-3 Using Tasks with Young Learners in Japan

Natsuko Shintani

A question commonly raised by teachers is the extent to which TBLT is suitable for young beginners but to date,

there has been, very little research has examined how TBLT can be implemented with complete beginners. This

may be one reason why task-based teaching has been viewed sceptically in some quarters (e.g., Littlewood,

2007). This paper reports my attempt to develop and implement a set of task-based materials for young Japanese

learners of English, who were complete beginners. I was motivated to develop task-based materials by my

dissatisfaction with present-practice-produce (PPP), which figures so strongly in the text books available for

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teaching children in Japan (e.g., Nakata, Frazier, Hoskins, & Graham, 2007). This paper, thus, documents my

attempt to introduce a task-based approach in order to see if such an approach was viable for such learners. The

materials employed listen-and-do tasks (i.e. one-way information gap tasks mediated by the teacher’s simple oral

commands). I chose this type of task because complete beginners could not be expected to produce freely in the

L2. The paper focuses on two aspects: whether the tasks enabled the learners to learn vocabulary and what effect

asking the learners to repeat the same tasks a number of times had on the way they performed the tasks and on

learning. It documents how teachers can play a role in mediating this type of task in the classroom. The

presentation will conclude with some suggestions for teachers in implementing tasks for young learners.

Poster Session 1 (Lobby: 15:00-17:00)

P-1 Peer Correction vs. Self Correction in English Writing

Eunpyo Lee

This study examines how peer correction affects students' self correction skills of English writing by comparing

two different essays and analyzes the types of common errors made by medical students. The total of 46

first-year medical students, registered for 2011 Practical English, participated in the study. The final draft of the

first essay was peer corrected with comments on the writing. Another essay was written and self corrected in a

three week period. Error analysis was conducted to investigate the types of prevalent errors. The results revealed

that peer correction was not correlated with error reduction on the next writing; however, it was effective in

terms of inducing learners' interest and being able to detect other writer's errors, which could eventually lead to

correct their own errors. The most commonly occurred errors were wrong word choice followed by plural and

subject-verb agreement errors. As learners want teacher's feedback on error correction as well as ways to

improve their writing, English writing teachers are expected to provide them with explicit error correction and

individually conducive feedback.

P-2 Reflection on the Use of Blended Learning

Myeong-Hee Seong

The purpose of this study was to examine students' satisfaction and learning outcomes in smart and blended

learning environments. This paper reflects on the experience of the delivery of a program at H University in

Seoul, Korea using smart and blended learning. The goal was to apply the findings to current blended learning

models in order to explore possible modifications that may enhance learning environments for Korean university

students. The participants were 19 students enrolled in an English Language major course, Speaking 2:

Presentation, which aimed to teach students to deliver oral presentations in English. Data was collected from

questionnaires, reflection journal, and face-to-face interviews. The analysis of the data indicated that the overall

student perception of smart and blended learning environments is positive. In addition, students' perception of

the course content influenced their interest in smart and blended learning environments. One of the primary

findings was the importance of clear and transparent communication and organization of a smart and blended

learning environment.

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P-3 Suggestions for College English Camp

Myeong-Hee Seong

This study aims to provide suggestions for effective college English camp through investigating the participants’

satisfaction and perceptions of the English camp program which were implemented for 2 years from 2010 to

2012 during the summer and winter vacations. For the study, the questionnaire surveys were conducted to find

out the participants’ satisfaction and the reflection papers were collected and analyzed to obtain perceptions on

the camps after each English Camp. The participants for the Camp were 80 college students each consisting of

various majors. Each camp was programmed with basically similar environment. However, it was getting

modified in some parts through reflecting students’ perceptions of the English Camp. The result indicated that

reflected camp programs showed higher satisfaction. Effective teaching methods and pre-, during-, and

after-camp management were discussed.

P-4 Improving “Naturalness” in English–Speaking through Tracking

Seung-Jae Moon and Ho Han

Teaching and learning English has focused on improving communicative competence under the framework of

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The key of the communicative competence is the speaking skill,

which can be identified with multifaceted factors of mechanics (pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar),

communicative functions, and sociocultural understandings. There have been many teaching methods to improve

the speaking skill, most of which take one of those factors as the main target. The goal of this study is to

investigate whether the ‘tracking’ method is effective in improving English pronunciation of Korean EFL

learners. Teaching/learning pronunciation have been researched with regard to the acquisition of segmental and

suprasegmental elements, the latter of which are taken to be more important to fluency (Bowen, Madsen, &

Hilferty, 1985). Tracking is a method in which “learners attempt to repeat immediately after the speaker

whatever the speaker says, on a word-by-word basis (Acton, 1984:77).” We conducted an experiment in which

the experimental group of Korean adult EFL learners practiced tracking and their speaking fluency was

evaluated by two native English speakers in terms of General Impression, Segmental Pronunciation, Stress

Intonation, Thought Group, and Speaking Rate, compared with the speaking fluency of the control group. It is a

typical prestest-posttest setting where improvement of fluency by both groups was statistically analyzed by

means of ANCOVA. The results demonstrate that the experimental group show much more improvement in

fluency, particularly in terms of Stress Intonation, Thought Group, and Speaking Rate. We conclude that tracking

is an effective method of improving English pronunciation of Korean adult EFL learners regarding

suprasegmental features.

P-5 Chinese EFL Learners’ Attribution Beliefs and Self-Efficacy in English Reading as a FL

Feifei Han

Although self-efficacy and attribution beliefs are researched to some extent in first language (L1) reading with

children, comparatively less is known about the nature of self-efficacy and attribution beliefs, and their

relationship and their joint contributions to reading success of adult readers reading in a foreign language (FL).

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This presentation reports a study of self-efficacy and attribution beliefs in reading English as a FL with a cohort

of Chinese EFL learners at university level. A group of 159 second-year students majoring in Business

Management participated in the study. They answered two questionnaires asking them to report their

self-efficacy and attribution beliefs to FL reading. Their English reading achievement was tested through a

mock- CET-Band-4 format reading test. Quantitative data from the two questionnaires and the reading test scores

were analyzed using correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and one-way ANOVA. The results

showed that Chinese students had different attribution beliefs to success and failure of English reading: they

attributed the success of English reading frequently to the effort, the use of reading strategies and the English

teachers, whereas the most frequent factors to which they attributed the failure of English reading were the bad

luck, poor English teachers as well as the difficult reading tasks. The results of the multiple regression analysis

indicated that self-efficacy and attribution beliefs (i.e. attribution to strategies and mood) in FL together

explained about 17.0% of variance in FL reading achievement. The study also found that both self-efficacy and

attribution beliefs differed among high-, medium-, and low-achieving readers. High-achieving FL readers

demonstrated higher self-efficacy than medium-achieving readers, who again were more confident than their

low-achieving counterparts. Additionally, high-achieving FL readers tended to attribute English reading to the

use of reading strategies, and to view reading achievement as changeable over time, more often than medium-

and low-achieving readers. The results of the study provide some practical implications for English teachers in

China that they should gain a thorough understanding of students’ affect and motivation in order to foster a

strong sense of self-efficacy in English reading, as well as should help students to build appropriate attribution

beliefs to their level of success and failure in English reading. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future

research are also articulated.

P-6 A Study on the Textbooks for Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language

Bok-Myung Chang and Sun-Min Lee

It is the reality of Korean language education that the development of teaching materials of Korean for academic

purposes are not so brisk, compared to that of the materials for general purposes, as the education of Korean as a

foreign language has just begun to proceed. Therefore, this study aims to suggest a more desirable way for

development of teaching materials for KFL (Korean as a Foreign Language) for academic purposes, by

comparing the composition of Korean textbook for academic purpose with the composition of an EFL (English

as a Foreign Language) textbook for academic purpose that has already achieved excellent outcomes.

The textbook series of KFL published by one of University Korean Language Center in Korea, is

distinguished as they have drawn a line between the colloquial language literacy and written language literacy,

classifying language skills only into the two section namely 'Speaking and Listening' and 'Reading and Writing'.

This series of books is considered to be more efficient and effective than other textbooks where the four

language skills are divided individually or combined together because the learners who are weak in colloquial

language literacy can select one of the textbook for 'Speaking and Listening' and the learners who are weak in

written language literacy can select one of the textbook for 'Reading and Writing'.

Regarding English textbooks, one of ESL textbooks which are popular among EFL learners in Korean

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Universities was noticed to have the same way of classification. Thus, the researcher intends to analyze the

strong points and weak points of the textbook series of KFL published by one of University Korean Language

Center in Korea, comparing its composition with that of EFL textbook series.

It is confirmed through this survey that the education of English as a foreign language is occupying a leading

position also in the section of textbook development because the education of English as a foreign and second

language has a longer history and progress of developing than the education of Korean as a foreign language.

Accordingly, the researcher wishes that, in the future, textbooks of excellent composition would be developed in

the field of Korean education for academic purpose, based on theory about textbook development and the

theoretical analysis which have progressed in the field of English as a second language.

P-7 Contextual Factors Affecting Japanese English Learners’ Use of Unaccusative Verbs

Kazuharu Owada and Eiichiro Tsutsui

There has been extensive research on the acquisition of unaccusative verbs in L2 English produced by English

learners of various L1s. The unaccusative verbs can be divided into two: alternating unaccusatives such as

‘open’, ’close’ and non-alternating unaccusatives such as ‘fall’ and ‘happen’ n L2 English. There are mainly

three ways of conducting the research on this issue: grammatical judgment tests, elicitation tasks and corpora

(see for example Rutherford 1998; Zobl 1989; Oshita 1997, 2000; Hirakawa 2003). Among the three ways of

eliciting data, grammatical judgment tests are extensively used.

Unaccusative verbs pose serious challenges for Japanese learners of English because these verbs are difficult

to conceptualize and are context-sensitive. One explanation for why Japanese learners have difficulty acquiring

these unaccusative verbs is that situations where these verbs are appropriate are contextually limited. For

example, ‘The door opened’ is used only in certain limited contexts. Secondly, unaccusatives tend to have the

semantic role of theme in the subject position. This can cause confusion for the learners because they can

confuse ‘The door was closed’ with ‘The door closed.’

The purpose of this study is firstly to analyze the results of grammatical judgment tests by using animated

cartoons which have targeted unaccusative verbs. In these tests the participants describe the cartoons consisting

of two contexts where the target unaccusative verb is presented. For example, in the case of ‘fall,’ one context is

where the girl just falls down the stairs (i.e., internal factor), and the other context is where the girl is pushed

down the stairs and falls (i.e., external factor). The second purpose is to gain an understanding of the Japanese

learners’ conception of the meanings and argument structures of these difficult unaccusative verbs; if we can

understand why students use these verbs incorrectly, we should then be able to explain the correct way to use

these verbs and give students guided practice in using them.

P-8 Exploration of Cross-Cultural Communication Skills in the Context of Theme-Based

Online Discussion

Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano

This paper shows a part of our longitudinal study that has attempted to explore the concept of cross-cultural

communication skills required in the context of theme-based online discussion among Asian learners of English.

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Since the inception of our continuous survey (Yoshida & Nakano, 2008), we have sought to conceptualize the

essential skill techniques that can be utilized for facilitating one’s cross-cultural interactions with others, which

we regarded as cross-cultural communication skills, with the aid of relevant theories and the concepts. In this

process, we decided to adopt the concept of social skills (Goldstein et al., 1997; Kikuchi, 1988), a series of

socially desirable skills originally developed in the field of psychology, and accommodation skills (Shephard et

al., 2001), a set of conversation management skills based on socio-linguistic perspectives on human

communication. In order to discuss the validity to employ the above interdisciplinary perspectives, we have

conducted empirical questionnaire-based surveys. With a 50-item questionnaire called Student Skillstreaming

Checklist (Goldstein et al. 1997), Yoshida (2009; see also, Yoshida & Nakano, 2008, 2009) conducted social

skills surveys among Asian learners of English in the context of cross-cultural online discussion. As a result, 34

out of the 50 skill items were found to be essential in the cross-cultural interactions. In order to further examine

the essential aspects of the skill techniques, Yoshida and Nakano (2010) adopted the concept of accommodation

skills elaborated in Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT: Shephard et al., 2001) and added newly

constructed 6 CAT items to the questionnaire. The questionnaire items were subject to factor analysis to explore

the conceptual structure of the cross-cultural communication skills. The results indicated that two opposing types

of communicative tendencies, convergence and divergence, can be extracted from the 6 CAT items as congruent

with the original notions of CAT, and that these socio-linguistic concepts can live in harmony with those of

psychological concepts, that is, those associated with social skills. These findings suggested a piece of evidence

for applying the concepts of social skills and of accommodation skills to explore the cross-cultural

communication skills. On the basis of these considerations, the current study aims to further delineate the

conceptual structures of the cross-cultural communication skills through the modification of our questionnaire

items. The findings will provide a fundamental framework to define the concept of the cross-cultural

communication skills as well as a material to assess the skill attainments in the context of cross-cultural online

discussion.

P-9 A Coh-Metrix Analysis of Pre-Writing and Post-Writing: which of 62 Statistical Features

are Relevant to the Assessment of Expository Writing in English?

Michiko Nakano, Satoshi Yoshida, Masanori Oya and Yutaka Ishii

In 2011, Open Education Center ran twice the trial lessons of Critical Reading and Writing Course. The first trial

was reported in 16th PAAL and 6th International Symposium of Tertiary Education. In this poster presentation,

we report the second trial lessons. The Critical Reading and Writing Course was expected to expand in the years

to come. In order to score many writings produced by our students, we have tried to find some automatic

assessment computer programs available in public which should be able to discriminate good writing from

poorer writing. Coh-Metrix was chosen as one of the possible assessment computer programs. Due to the East

Japan Earthquake, only 8 students managed to participate in the first trial lessons.

Coh-Metrix was implemented by Memphis University in 2007, yielding 62 statistical indices. The manual

was available, but the links to the important definitions were no longer available and the formulas used were not

presented in the manual. For this reason, our first analysis was exploratory in seeking for good predictor indices

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which appear to illuminate the differences among the top groups, middle groups and bottom groups. Then, we

analyzed the data qualitatively, paying our attention to the structural clarity, coherence and cohesion. Our

qualitative analysis appeared to accord with 48 variables computed by Coh-Metrix. We looked at the textual data

once more, focusing on the use of causal verbs and intentional verbs. Through this exploratory analytical process,

we discovered that 8 data can be grouped into three: causal style, in-between style and intentional style. Causal

style tended to use causal verbs most and to have the greatest structural clarity and cohesion.

Intentional style tended to emphasize what they felt and thought about the topic, hence using most intentional

verbs. In-between style revealed a mixture of the two styles. Based on the tentative groupings, we calculated

Effect size D between pre-task and post-task. 21 Coh-Metrix indices showed that the causal style writings

showed the mirror images to the intestinal writings; that is, when Ds were positive in causal writings, Ds in

intentional writing turned out to be negative. These mirror images were consistent in the 21 variables. For this

reason, we replicated the same exploratory analytical procedures in the second trial lessons. In the second trial

lessons ten students managed to submit pre-writing and post-writing. We ran Coh-Metrix and calculated Effect

size D. 21 Coh-Metrix indices behaved somewhat similarly. We are now in the process of qualitative analysis to

show the relationship between statistical indices and qualitative analysis.

P-10 Using Mobile Phones in English Reading Class

Eiichiro Tsutsui, Kazuharu Owada, Norifumi Ueda and Michiko Nakano

The number of present mobile phone users in Japan has exceeded Japan's population. Recent university students

have one or two phones with them. Inexpensive wi-fi music players and computer tablets are also available in the

market. Moodle among other e-learning tools is already mobile-accessible. This makes it easier to use these

devices in the average classroom, despite probable criticism from some educators. In fact, most students in Japan

are told not to use their cell-phone during regular class hours. However, this can be very educational, if used

wisely and properly.

Firstly, this ongoing study focuses on the use of cell-phones in reading classes targeting basic learners of

English. Some reading activities can be very demotivating because reading comprehension requires cognitive

workload. Therefore, a wide variety of learning activities and strategic plans are necessary. The good use of ICT

devices in class enables language teachers to teach reading more interactively and spontaneously. This study will

demonstrate some efficient ways of (1) timed reading, (2) grammar translation, and (3) extensive reading

activities by incorporating new dimensional aspects into regular reading classroom activities.

Secondly, the study will seek to assess the use of mobile phones in a regular classroom. We will present how

we overcame technical difficulties and review students’ both positive and negative perceptions toward this issue

by conducting a survey.

P-11 Empowering Intercultural Communicative Competence through Metacognitive Reading

Strategy

Hyung-ji Chang

This study aims to propose using English reading strategies to enhance Intercultural Communicative

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Competence (ICC) for EFL learners (Byram, 1997). The study recruited college-level participants who were

enrolled in a general English reading course (N=30) and administrated the surveys with a Repeated Measures

Design (RMD). In the survey, an intercultural sensitivity scale (Chen & Starosta, 2000) and metacognitive

reading strategies inventory (Kweon, 2009) were conducted for comparison. During the instruction, participants

were asked to use the R.I.D.E.R. (i.e. Read, Image, Describe, Evaluate, and Repeat) strategy for visualization of

text (Clark et al., 1984), which is aimed at facilitating the use of metacognitive reading strategies. In the results,

participants showed a statistically significant increase both in the intercultural sensitivity level and the use of

metacognitive reading strategies after the practice of R.I.D.E.R for one semester. Further analysis was appended

to the results by the correlation and regression analysis, and proposed that participants benefit their development

of intercultural sensitivity from the use of metacognitive reading strategies. Therefore, the study suggests that

implementing metacognitive reading strategies facilitates college EFL readers to increase their cultural

sensitivity, which empowers ICC through English reading.

P-12 Analysis of the Implicational Relation between Syllabification and Phonetic Realization in

Korean Speakers

Kwanyoung Oh

The purpose of this study is that, by experimenting with syllabification of two syllable-words as CVCVC on

Koreans, first I will identify the basis of their syllabification on those words. Second, from my assumption

regarding syllabification as closely related to pronunciation, I can find the source of unnatural, nonrhythmic

pronunciation of Koreans, which may be caused by the gap between phonological syllable structure and phonetic

syllable structure. Finally, I try to suggest how to approach the result of the experiment phonologically.

The existing studies on errors of pronunciation due to the phonological differences between English and

Korean have mainly been carried out based on stress position, vowel length, phonotactics, sonority scale,

language-specific character, etc. But there has been rare research done on the relation between syllabification

and phonetic realization. The reason why I have concerns about this relationship originated in the assumption

that the way speakers syllabify words is a decisive element affecting pronunciation of L2 speakers.

In addition to the above, the other concern I have is the big difference between English and Korean in respect

to what element affects phonetic realization of phonemes. That is, while syllable stress in English has an effect

on phonetic realization of phonemes, syllable position in Korean affects the realization of phonemes.

From this aspect, we will find very interesting facts if Korean speakers are required to syllabify words like

‘motor, vital, topic, etc.’ and we consider how they will syllabify and pronounce intervocalic consonants /t, p/ of

those words. For example, if one places an accent on the first syllable, he may segment ‘motor’ as /mó [t]-or/,

but if one places an accent on the second syllable, he may segment as /mo-[th] ór/. But in fact, it is very possible

that Korean speakers may segment the word as /mó [t]-or/ due to their syllable-based native language.

Therefore, experiments are needed to verify my assertion referred to above. I will experiment on some

Koreans to syllabify two syllable-words including intervocalic consonants like liquids, nasals, obstruents among

a series of two syllable-words. The words to be presented to the subjects are as follows:

(1) words including intervocalic liquids

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balance, era, elect, alarm, color, iris, erect, carouse, column, lilac, relax, delay, melon, pilot, select, erase, olive,

series, maroon, relic, serum, relate, relish, silo, sarong, salad, solar, valid, tulip, very

(2) words including intervocalic nasals

banish, bonus, demand, amaze, camel, demon, enough, amount, image, final, deny, lemon, moment, amuse, limit,

omen, canoe, manage, rumor, demote, panic, tunic, emerge, punish, tumor, promote, senate, unit, remain, vanish,

Venus

(3) words including intervocalic obstruents

acid, baby, depend, abuse, devil, bacon, profess, device, habit, basis, propel, divorce, logic, even, evade, profit,

evil, guitar, proper, liter, obey, radish, motor, profane, second, oval, report, seven, raven, retire, topic, vital,

reveal, busy, easy, spicy, city, cozy, racy, steady

The subjects to participate in this experiment are 30 Korean university students. I will perform two kinds of

tasks on the subjects; one is listening task because I’d like to recognize their ability to perceive sounds that may

be embedded in their own ways. The other is written task, and this is for recognizing their inherent, cognitive

ability of sound identification in syllabifying words which they perceive visually.

From this study, we can find a few things; one of them is to confirm whether Koreans have a preference for

CV/CVC syllable types (Derwing 1992). The other is that we can identify the difference between the cognition

of words and their realization among Koreans more practically. Third, as a result of specifying the cue of

unnatural, nonrhythmic pronunciation of Koreans, valuable, practical information would be provided for the

education of English pronunciation to Koreans.

P-13 Teaching Intercultural Competence and Critical Thinking in EFL Classes in Japan:

Developing a Framework and Teaching Material

Yukie Koyama, Hideki Ohno, and Kahoko Matsumoto

In this globalizing, ICT-driven world, intercultural encounters happen every day, not only in the face-to-face

mode but also in a variety of forms mediated through computers and the Internet. In the case of young people,

they need to be able to function and participate in international communication smoothly as future global citizens.

Also, critical thinking skills are an inseparable part of solving problems in intercultural communication.

Therefore, even educators, living in the Far East and in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment,

recognize the urgent need to explicitly teach intercultural competence with critical thinking to our students.

This is an interim report on a publicly-funded study, which aims to develop a framework, teaching material

and evaluation criteria for intercultural competence and critical thinking as required for Japanese students to

become able to solve problems in intercultural communication at different levels. Our research started out by

forming the objectives and criteria tailored to our situation, while referring to the Framework of Reference for

Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures (FREPA) published by the European Center for Modern

Languages (ECML), and various critical thinking tests presently used mainly in the U.S including Ennis-Weir

Test, Cornell Test and ETS’ new i-critical test. The initial, tentative objectives in the form of Can-do statements

created for our framework have been validated both qualitatively and quantitatively for adequate modifications

and adjustments. At the same time, we have been creating and piloting teaching materials to fit our major

45

objectives. In our qualitative research, which consists of questionnaire surveys and interviews gathered from

many teachers and students, we incorporated the Council of Europe’s “Autobiographies of Intercultural

Encounters” as a reflective learning tool in order to ascertain specific problems our students face. This tool

proved useful in helping us understand how students tackle with, and attempt to solve communication difficulties

in the EFL contexts.

In our presentation, we will show the framework for intercultural competence and critical thinking for

Japanese EFL classes we have created so far, and explain the processes of modification and adjustment in order

to address the specific needs of EFL students in Japan. In addition, the presenters will show piloting results

related to the search for ideal teaching material and demonstrate the matching of objectives with these teaching

materials together with the effort to develop the valid assessment tools.

P-14 A Comparison Study of the Effect of Reading Instruction Using Storytelling and

Storysinging

Jeong-In Moon and Unkyoung Maeng

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the effect of reading instruction using storytelling and

storysinging in a Korean primary English class. For the purpose, an experiment was conducted on two fourth

grade classes of 40 students of a school in Suwon, Korea. The experimental group was given reading instruction

using storysinging and the control group, using storytelling. PELT Jr., a reading test and interviews were used to

collect the data. Independent samples t-test and paired t-test were used to analyze the data. The results of the

study were as follows: First, there was no significant difference between the groups in enhancing students’

reading comprehension. However, the storytelling group showed significant improvement in reading

comprehension while the storysinging group didn’t show significant improvement. Second, the students in both

groups had developed more positive attitude toward learning English. They enjoyed the lessons very much and

they were motivated to pursue extra reading outside their classroom. However, students in storysinging group

had a little difficulty in learning new melodies, rhythms and beats and this seemed to affect the results of the

post-test of reading comprehension of the storysinging group indirectly.

P-15 A Close Look at English Teacher Employment Examinations: How do raters assess?

Tomoyasu Akiyama

This paper focuses on an investigation of teacher employment examinations, focusing on how raters assess

prospective English teachers. In order to become an English teacher at public junior and senior high schools,

candidates are required to pass first and the second tests (Ministry of Education, 2012). Those who cannot pass

the first and second tests unfortunately have to wait for another year. Approximately only one out of eight

candidates successfully passed in 2011. Therefore this is a high stakes test. This paper exclusively focuses on the

second tests, assessment of candidates’ teaching performance via microteaching. As there has been no research

into the second test in particular, it is important to investigate what and how raters assess candidates.

The main original purpose of microteaching was to assist teachers in indentifying their weaknesses and in

developing their teaching (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2008; Borko, Whitcomb & Byrnes, 2008). However,

46

serious problems arise in cases where microteaching is used to assess candidates for English teaching positions

in the high stakes context. Thus, it would be crucial to investigate the extent to which scores provided by raters

would have an impact on employment decisions. For this purpose, DIF analysis technique is a useful tool to

identify unexpected systematic interactions among candidates, raters and criteria (McNamara, 1996).

Twenty-one candidates undertook microteaching performance tests and four raters rated all candidates

according to criteria used in the actual testing context. Data were analyzed using Multi-facet Rasch measurement

statistical software (Linacre, 2006), which mainly administers bias analyses based on interactions between raters

and candidates. Results showed that although four raters assessed the candidates relatively consistently,

approximately 20% of the interactions between the raters and candidates were identified as bias. Further analyses

were conducted, investigating how raters assessed candidates and what could possibly cause biased results using

think-aloud protocol.

Finally, this paper discusses issues with the use of microteaching in the high stakes context from the point of

view of validity and reliability.

P-16 Comparability of Accuracy and Communicability Tasks: Are they all equally difficult?

Yoshihito Sugita

In this study, two sets of accuracy and communicability tasks (Original and New) are compared to determine

whether these tasks are parallel in terms of task difficulty. Three experienced Japanese teachers of English

examined the degree of parallelness of five accuracy and five communicability tasks including the Original tasks

with regard to time pressure, support, stakes and overall difficulty, and selected comparable tasks (New tasks).

The Original and New tasks were administered to 24 university students in Japan. The two raters were requested

to mark each of the two task sets seperately after an interval of one month, with a score for each task on a scale

of 1 to 5. The performance data from the different task sets were analyzed using classical procedures (correlation

and ANOVA) and FACETS. The results showed that the Original and New tasks can be considered parallel at the

overall test level. At the individual task level, the two communicability tasks could be thought of equally difficult,

while the accuracy tasks are fairly reliably separated into different levels of difficulty. Reasons why the degree of

difficulty of the selected accuracy task varies were suggested by prompt effects in writing performance

assessment, and provided useful insights to the further task-development.

47


PAAL Graduate Session 2

Session 3-A

Session 3-B

Session 3-C

Session 3-D

Session 3-E

Poster Session 2

Session 3-F

Session 3-H

Session 3-J

Session 3-K

Colloquium

48



09:00-10:30 PAAL Graduate

Session 2


Poster Session 2

(Q-1-10)

10:00-12:00

@Lobby

3-A-1

3-A-2

3-A-3

3-B-1

3-B-2

10:30-11:00 Tea Break

11:00-12:30


3-C-1

3-C-2

3-C-3

3-D-1

3-D-2

3-D-3

3-E-1

3-E-2

3-E-3


14:00-15:30

Session 3F Session 3-J Session 3-K

3-F-1 3-J-1

3-J-2

3-J-3

3-K-1

3-K-2

3-K-3

15:00-15:30 Tea Break

15:30-17:30 Colloquium (Function Room)

18:00- Banquet

49


PAAL Graduate Session 2 (VIP Room 1: 9:00-10:30)

G2-1 The Effectiveness of Segment-Focused Pronunciation Teaching and Supra

Segmental-Focused Pronunciation Teaching

Mitsunari Sugiuchi

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of a segment-focused teaching method and a supra

segmental-focused teaching method for enhancing Japanese English learners’ pronunciation intelligibility.

In English education in Japan, grammar and vocabulary are regarded as crucial, and, by contrast,

pronunciation is not emphasized. There is a wide range of problems that Japanese English teachers have in this

field. Some of them are as follows: 1) not enough time, 2) teachers do not know much about phonetics, and 3)

teachers do not know how to teach. Thus, improving learner’s pronunciation is a great challenge in TEFL in

Japan. Therefore, a question arises as to how best to approach the teaching and learning of pronunciation. In this

study, segment- and supra segmental-focused pronunciation teaching are compared as the pronunciation teaching

methods in view of the fact that it is both at the segmental and supra segmental levels that a learner’s L1 habits

and knowledge influence the acquisition of an L2 pronunciation. (Major 1987, Ellis 1994)

Phonetically speaking, a fundamental characteristic of segmental elements is that they play a role in

conveying lexical information, whereas supra segmental elements account for the meaning of the context. On the

basis of the functions of these aspects of the phonological system, I have formulated a hypothesis that supra

segmental-focused teaching method is more efficient for elevating learners’ English pronunciation intelligibility

than segment- focused teaching method.

These teaching methods will be conducted in two classes of first-year high school students. Each class

consists of 42 or 43 students. One of the two classes will be taught in a segment-focused way, and the other will

be taught in a supra segmental-focused way. Each class will meet twice per week, and in each meeting of the

class, they will receive each pronunciation teaching for about 10 minutes. The total number of treatment sessions

will be 13 times. Before and after the treatment, students will record their own English pronunciation. These data

will be evaluated for intelligibility on a scale of 1 to 5 by two native speakers of English and one non-native

speaker of English considering the manageability of evaluation task, data from about ten students in each class

will be used for this study.

In addition, students will be rated for listening ability considered before and after the treatment as the theory

that pronunciation intelligibility is germane to listening ability.

G2-2 Learners' Development of Intercultural Competence in Cross-Cultural Distance Learning

Kaori Koizumi

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how participants in Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL)

develop their intercultural competence through interactions with overseas students. Initiated by Waseda

University in 1999, CCDL has offered participants opportunities to develop not only English skills but also other

skills they need in order to communicate with people from different countries. Therefore, CCDL is expected to

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work positively for the participants to develop their intercultural competence.

Distance learning has become increasingly popular over the last two decades in language education. However,

not enough research has been conducted as to cultural learning outcomes, compared to linguistic competence.

Therefore, this study focuses on cultural outcomes of distance learning, setting the following research questions;

1. How do students in CCDL classes evaluate their own level of intercultural competence?

2. Which aspects of intercultural competence are likely to develop through CCDL?

3. What interactional patterns can be seen in the process of developing intercultural competence?

In order to examine the research questions, pre and post questionnaires were distributed to the participants of

CCDL in the fall semester of 2011. The 24 items on the questionnaire, elicited from Byram’s model of

intercultural competence, asked the 68 participants to assess their own level of intercultural competence before

and after cyber sessions. The results of the pre-questionnaire showed that the participants relatively had positive

attitudes to the interaction with their partner university students from the start. On the other hand, they assessed

lower for the items that require knowledge or understanding of their interlocutor’s culture. The results were then

compared to those of post-questionnaire so as to identify which items showed positive change after the

experience of the cyber sessions. Sign test revealed that 7 of the 24 items showed significant difference in their

self-assessment; knowledge on interlocutor’s culture, awareness of possible misunderstandings, knowledge on

the characteristics of interlocutor’s English, skills to explain their different views, skills to identify and explain

areas of misunderstanding, skills to discover cultural differences, and skills to discover cultural similarities.

In order to investigate interactional patterns in the process of developing intercultural competence, the last

two items, skills to discover differences and skills to discover similarities, were chosen for the micro-level

observations. Conversations of the participants of the present CCDL class (spring semester of 2012) will be

further analysed to find patterns characterising the process of developing intercultural competence.

G2-3 Attitude and Motivation in SLA among Japanese Students in Immersion Education

Liu Xiaofei

Immersion Education as a bilingual education program requires that at least half of the curriculum be

implemented through the medium of the target language. The restriction of using students’ first language in the

education process is most remarkable feature of Immersion Education. Currently, more types of immersion

program such as partial immersion, full immersion, have been brought to life with a view to meeting differing

needs of learners placed in different circumstances.

In Japan, Katoh Gakuen first implemented the English partial immersion program in its Gyoshu Junior High

School in 1998 and then in its High School division in 2001. Hereafter, Ritsumeikan Uji High School started its

partial English immersion program in 2000.

The purpose of this research is on one hand to describe attitudes and motivation in learning English as a

second language among Japanese students in the partial Immersion program in Ritsumeikan Uji High School. On

the other hand, it determines students’ attitude towards their experience through the program as well as the

program itself. In order to accomplish research, investigation of the English Immersion Program at Ritsumeikan

Uji High School has been carried out. In concrete, observation of various classes and students’ in-class

51

performance, as well as questionnaire survey about immersion students’ attitudes towards their immersion

experience and their opinion about influences of immersion education on the learning of other subject has been

completed. The present investigation suggests that immersion students' attitudes toward English Education they

experienced are generally positive and that their positive attitudes towards learning enhances acquisition of

English and promotes communication skills. However, there is one drawback that they are poor at learning other

subjects such as math, science and history. The present paper discusses how to supplement this pedagogical

drawback.


3-A-1 Shift of Focus in English for Academic Purposes Assessment: Its Impact on Teaching &

Learning Approach within A Cultural-based Framework

Jianrong Sun

Expectations of English teaching at tertiary level to serve the total curriculum adopted for academic degree

programs make English courses their current function of service courses as their primary purposes. The focus of

English teaching is thus expected on meeting the needs that degree programs require, hence English for

academic purposes. With such a focus as being recognized as important, the current paper argues for an

outcomes-based curriculum design (OBCD), where articulation of intended student learning outcomes needs to

precede the rest of the curriculum design, namely, design of teaching and learning activities, textbook selection

and use, and evaluation design. To ensure the quality of teaching, alignment is a key linkage among the various

components within any coherent curriculum design, its implementation, and its evaluation. In adopting this

proposed OBCD, programs will be expected to confront challenges many of which bear strong national culture

traits. This paper provides discussions on how such national culture traits impact (1) the scope of articulation of

intended learning outcomes in language skills, language competencies, and language knowledge, (2)

compromises in selecting pedagogies, and (3) negotiation of interaction during classroom delivery. To make the

proposed OBCD a fit for tertiary level English teaching in Chinese higher education, this paper argues that the

articulation of intended learning outcomes focus on the lower order skills as described in Bloom’s taxonomy

(1956), that pedagogies be selected and modified, which reflects national culture traits as studied in Hofstede

(2002), and that classroom delivery consider both the teacher’s and students’ beliefs and acceptance within a

culture-based model governing classroom behaviors in Chinese higher education.

3-A-2 An Action Research of Classroom-Based Assessment: From Theory to Classroom Practice

Yan Zhu

This paper conducts an action research of implementing classroom-based assessment in a tertiary FLT classroom.

It aims to seek answers to three research questions: First, can classroom-based assessment promote learner

autonomy? Second, is classroom-based assessment effective in improving learners’ proficiency of target

language? Third, what would probably be the constraints on implementing classroom-based assessment in

Chinese tertiary FLT classrooms? Qualitative data elicited from teachers’ teaching journals and interviews with

learners, combined with quantitative data collected from questionnaires reveal that classroom-based assessment

52

is an effective way of promoting learner autonomy by motivating learners and forming learning communities.

Besides, quantitative data obtained from a pre-test and a post-test prove that classroom-based assessment has a

beneficial effect on learners’ language proficiency. This study also indicates some possible constraints on the

implementation of classroom-based assessment in Chinese FLT classrooms. To ensure sustainable

implementation of classroom-based assessment, teachers need to be equipped with relevant professional

knowledge and abilities to carry out assessment for learning. Besides, classroom-based assessment should be

embedded into FLT curriculum to gain policy support.

3-A-3 Second Language Vocabulary Assessment

Yuji Nakamura, Adam Murray and Haruhiko Mitsunaga

It can be argued that vocabulary knowledge is essential for reading proficiency in both first and second

languages. While there has been extensive discussion about the importance of teaching vocabulary in academic

settings, testing vocabulary itself has received less attention. Currently, the validity of vocabulary testing as a

distinct construct is a matter of debate, whereas the assessment of reading and reading comprehension has

consistently been linked to some form of vocabulary measurement (Ekbatani, 2011).

The purpose of the present study is two fold: 1) to discuss important issues in second language vocabulary

assessment in academic settings, and 2) to analyze the vocabulary section of a university placement test. The two

issues will be dealt with by examining the placement test results and JACET 8000 (The Japan Association of

College English Teachers List of 8000 Basic Words) (JACET, 2003). Four research questions were set to

examine if the word level or readability are good indicators of vocabulary test items.

The results show that there is very little correlation between readability and difficulty, or between JACET

8000 and difficulty, thus they cannot be considered good indicators of difficulty. Also, when preparing

vocabulary test items, word level, readability, and the contents of the item should be taken into consideration.

Furthermore, attention must be paid to the clear meaning of categorization of vocabulary terms such as

vocabulary size, breadth, depth, collocation, phrases and idioms. The details will be given in the presentation.


3-B-1 Bangladeshi University Students’ Attitudes towards Native Varieties of English

Yeasin Miah and Weimin Zhang

Research indicates that there tends to be a positive relationship between learners’ favorable attitudes towards a

language and their achievements in the acquisition of this language. Thus, investigating second language (L2)

learners’ perceptions of varieties of English has implications for English as a second/foreign language

(ESL/EFL) teaching and learning. This study was designed to investigate the attitudes of Bangladeshi ESL

learners towards three native English varieties: American English (AmE), British English (BrE) and Australian

English (AuE). Sixty Bangladeshi ESL university students participated in the survey. The research employed the

matched-guise technique for data collection. A 69-word passage spoken by three female English native speakers

from each of the three varieties was used. After listening to each of the three recordings, the participants were

asked to evaluate seven language-related qualities, twelve person-related qualities, and two teaching-related

53

qualities about the three native English varieties on seven-point Likert scales. They were also asked to determine

the speakers’ places of origin from the speeches. The results indicate that Bangladeshi ESL learners tend to have

positive attitudes towards all the three native varieties of English in terms of the three examined dimensions. All

the three native English varieties were also perceived to be “standard” accents of English, with AmE rated as the

most “standard” and BrE as the second most “standard”. The participants were also able to determine the

nativeness of each variety but had difficulty in accurately identifying the three English varieties. The most

favorite ESL teacher, from the participants’ perspectives, seems to be the AmE speaker rather than the BrE

speaker. The implications of the study will finally be presented.

3-B-2 Challenges of Native English Speakers Teaching English at a Chinese University

Yeasin Miah and Weimin Zhang

With the rapid economic and social development in China, the country holding the largest number of English as

a foreign language (EFL) learners in the world, the demand of native English teachers to teach English in China

is increasing. Meanwhile, a growing number of native speakers of English are willing to teach English in China,

especially at Chinese universities. Along with the growing number of native English speakers teaching English

in China, much research has been conducted to explore their teaching effectiveness from students’ or Chinese

teachers’ perspectives. A scarcity of research, however, has focused on the issue of how native English teachers

view their own EFL teaching in China. The current study is designed to investigate the challenges faced by

native English teachers at a Chinese university. Ten native speakers of English (7 from USA and 3 from UK)

teaching EFL at a top Chinese university were invited to participate in the study. Data was collected through

semi-structured interviewing. Data analysis indicates that the salient themes regarding the challenges that native

English teachers encounter in EFL teaching may fall into the following categories: classroom management,

teaching materials, students’ expectations, communication with Chinese colleagues and students, knowledge of

students, and knowledge of the context. The findings of the current study will have implications for those in

charge of recruiting and training native English teachers teaching EFL in China and the native English speakers

who are teaching EFL or are interested in teaching EFL in China.


3-C-1 Developing University Students’ Thinking Skills through the Teaching of Culture

Beverley Horne

The teaching of “culture” is not new to foreign language teaching at the university level. However, its role has

changed in recent years due to both the decline in the traditional teaching of literature and the requirement,

explicit or implicit, to teach a wide range of cultures in the context of “English as an International Language”.

The range of material on the Internet is wider than ever before, but students do not necessarily make appropriate

selections or engage critically with the material they choose to support their essays and presentations. Without

instruction on how to study other cultures, they often focus on the stereotypical, exotic or unique and do not

progress beyond the level of description or subjective reaction.

In this presentation I aim to show how Japanese university students majoring in English were able develop

54

their cognitive skills in the process of learning about culture. 1. At the beginning of the course, they were

instructed on approaches to culture that involved thinking about the material rather than reproducing factual

information. They were given a checklist to support their thinking. 2. They used this list throughout the course to

provide a framework for their reflections on the topics they studied. 3. At the end of the course they considered

how their approaches to other cultures had changed through this approach. The results revealed that the students

had developed a more analytical approach to other cultures and had also come to reflect more on their own

culture.

3-C-2 Workshops of Training Students’ Thinking in English

Yan Wu, Danli Su and Wensheng Deng

The paper is designed to demonstrate the cases of classroom teaching activities based on current western

theories of linguistics, psychology, pedagogy, and behaviorism. To begin with, it explores how teachers can

foster students the ways of thinking in idiomatic English, focusing on such procedures of thinking-oriented

guide as themes of pursuing, modes of thinking, and sentences of imitating idiomatically. Hence, the findings

show the virtual situations of lessening the students’ tension in viewing their thoughts on the basis of sensibility.

In the meantime, the intended projects at the workshop are carefully chosen to make available for the students

to internalize the statements lively and creatively in English. It is obvious that qualities, such as students’

thinking aptitudes, culture awareness as well as communicative competence, are ultimately to be improving in

all directions at the effective functioning of the language workshop.

3-C-3 A Project-based and Process-writing Approach to Reading and Writing

Yanbin Lu

This presentation reports on the implementation of and students’ feedback on a project-based, process-writing

approach in an EAP course entitled Reading and Writing for Reviews, which is offered to non English majoring

undergraduates at Tsinghua University in the spring semester of 2012. Students were instructed to work in small

groups, choose a topic of their own interest, search for relevant literature, write up a review of available literature,

and showcase their research findings in a poster presentation. Throughout the semester, a process writing

approach has been adopted, in which the students submit first and revised drafts and conduct peer review to give

and receive critical feedback to and from classmates. Students’ perspectives on this approach and this course will

be presented according to the results from the questionnaire survey conducted at the end of the semester.

Session 3-D (VIP Room 2: 11:00-12:30)

3-D-1 Building an Assessment Use Argument to Investigate Test Uses of the CET-4

Min Liu

Tests can be used in society as powerful tools for political, social, educational, and ideological agendas

(Shohamy, 2001). The College English Test Band Four (CET-4) is a large-scale and high-stakes test in the

mainland of China. It is intended to provide an objective evaluation of students’ overall English proficiency and

to positively impact EFL teaching at the tertiary level in China. In reality a large-scale test tends to serve

55

multiple purposes. Different groups of test users may refer to test scores in making decisions beyond its intended

purposes.

With an increasing recognition of the need to link validity issues with the consequences of using language

tests, The present study, drawing on Bachman and Palmer’s (2010) Assessment Use Argument, endeavors to

probe into washback of the CET-4 by addressing the following questions: 1) What have been the major types of

decisions made on CET-4 scores and who are responsible for making these decisions? 2) In what way and to

what extent do the CET-4 and the decisions made on it affect the college English teaching and learning? A

mixed-method approach was adopted mainly including statistical analysis of test scores, questionnaires,

interviews, document analysis. By linking assessment performances to score-based interpretations,

interpretations to decisions, the study is expected to investigate the consequences of using the CET-4 and of the

multiple decisions made on its scores. The major findings will be reported in the proposed paper.

3-D-2 Computational Approaches in Writing assessment

Li Liu, Barley Mak and Tan Jin

Since the 1990s, the writing performances of candidates had been analyzed in terms of surface-level measures,

comprising the human counts of linguistic features/structures and the intuitive comparisons between texts (see

Graesser et al., 2004; Reid, 1992). Recently, due to the developments in computational linguistics, corpus

linguistics and natural language processing, computational approaches have been widely applied to obtain

deeper-level measures in validating the writing assessment (Biber, 1988; Biber et al., 1998; Jurafsky & Martin,

2000; Moore & Wiemer-Hastings, 2003). To this end, this paper reviews empirical studies using computational

approaches in writing assessment. First, different computational approaches were compared in the context of

writing assessment. Second, the use of computational tools in analyzing candidates’ writing performances was

discussed. In the end, two research agendas were proposed: on the one hand, more features are needed to explore

better and more reliable predictors. On the other hand, computational tools are suggested to be used together

with qualitative evaluations of essays to provide a more accurate and detailed picture of candidates’ writing

performances.

3-D-3 Developing Membership Functions for Scoring Writing Performance: A pilot study

Tan Jin, Barley Mak and Li Liu

This paper reports on an application of “membership functions” to score writing performance. The concept,

membership functions, was originally used to deal with the problem of indistinction between adjacent levels in

scoring speaking performance (Jin, Mak, & Zhou, 2012; also see Jin & Mak, 2012). Recently, the indistinction

between adjacent levels has also been of concern in the holistic scoring of writing performance (see Liu, Mak, &

Jin, 2012). In this connection, this paper applies membership functions to the holistic scoring of writing

performance. The paper has three parts. First, new membership functions were constructed based on the IELTS

Percentile Ranks 2010 (IELTS Website, retrieved on 2 May 2012), which overall matched TOEFL iBT Percentile

Ranks 2010 (ETS Website, retrieved on 2 May 2012). Second, an example was provided to demonstrate how

membership functions were used in the holistic scoring of writing performance. In the end, more empirical

56

studies on the use of membership functions to score writing performance were called for in future research. This

paper thereby contributes membership functions to the assessment of writing proficiency.


3-E-1 Nominalization and Meaning Making: How Teachers Unpack and Develop Knowledge in

the Science Classroom

Nicholas Sampson

Scientific discourse, as Halliday (1993, pp.131) points out, demands a "high degree of nominalization" which

enables the Process (verbal group) to act as a nominal feature. Halliday (1993) argues that nominalization is a

mark of prestige and power, and often these nominalizations develop "a chain of reasoning" to ensure that the

writer’s meaning is transferred to the reader.

In this paper we look at examples of the structuring of knowledge through the use of the nominalization of

abstract meanings in the science classroom. We discuss the degree of nominalization found in science textbooks,

and review how teachers unpack such nominalization in the classroom to support their students’ understanding.

We draw on an analysis of English science textbooks used in Hong Kong in both secondary and tertiary

education contexts, and also an examination of video data of teachers as they unpack meaning in the science

classroom. The value of the study is to better understand abstract meaning and how knowledge is shared in the

science classroom, both in the textbook and through teacher talk. We also aim to model good practice,

demonstrating how good teachers talk about science in the classroom.

3-E-2 Fused Horizons for English Writing—English for Academic Purposes

Fengliang Mu

Francis Bacon is universally recognized for his aphorism: “Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man;

and writing an exact man.” The root of this aphorism leads to a key point of teaching English, which is bound for

horizon expansions, or in Gadamer’s philosophical point, for a “fusion of horizons”, since “a person who has no

horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence overvalues what is nearest to him. On the other hand,

‘to have a horizon’ means not being limited to what is nearby, but to being able to see beyond it.” According to

Gadamer, “Every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of ‘situation’ by saying that it

represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence essential part of the concept of situation is the

concept of ‘horizon.’ The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a

particular vantage point.” (Gadamer 2006:301) Based on this understanding, a training of writing effective

exposition is developed and discussed in the following four aspects. First, develop Independent Thinking in a

subject instead of Slavery Dependence on So-called Correctness. Second, develop Linear Thinking in

English writing instead of Cyclical Return. Third, persit in implementing Systematic Signals to ensure linear

thinking and mechanical coherence. Fourth, Aim for Univesal from Being Individual. To conclude, “fusion of

horizons” is a state that we can probably never fully achieve. But our training of writing effective exposition is

aiming to write for universal acceptance simply by being linear and concise with fused horizons as well as a

good focus.

57

3-E-3 Is EAP Necessary: A Survey of Undergraduate Studentsat a Chinese Research University

Xiao Yang and Weimin Zhang

English is the dominant medium of international academic journals and conferences, and non-native English

researchers have increasingly realized that it is of significance for them to command the competence of English

academic communication. Meanwhile, researchers in the Chinese EFL context direct growing attention to EAP

teaching and learning, mainly involving the issues of genre analysis of EAP discourses, teaching material design,

and EAP curriculum design. Little research, however, has been centered on this line of inquiry from students’

perspectives though it is widely admitted that in language teaching, learner needs should be taken into

consideration. This research was designed to investigate Chinese undergraduate students’ views of their EAP

competence and EAP teaching. 115 undergraduates from different disciplines at a top Chinese university

participated in the study. The techniques of a questionnaire and interviews were employed for data collection.

Data analysis indicates that most of the participants view EAP as an important competence in their future career.

The participants also maintain that they have considerable difficulty in EAP learning, including academic writing

(particularly in terms of how to write the sections of Discussion and Literature Review, how to use the genre of

academic language, how to write logically), academic speaking (particularly in terms of communicating fluently,

speaking accurately，and summarizing), academic listening (particularly in terms of how to follow a lecturer’s

accent, and how to follow a seminar or workshop), and academic reading (especially regarding academic

vocabulary and terms in a specific discipline). The participants further hold that it is of necessity for the

university to offer EAP courses to them (e.g., research paper writing, literature review writing, argumentative

essay writing, and expository essay writing). They also prefer to have more specialist academic courses offered

in English. The implications of the study are finally discussed.

Poster Session 2 (Lobby: 10:00-12:00)

Q-1 Analysis of the Duration of English Rhythm Units

Shizuka Nakamura

The properties of the duration of English rhythm segments, which comprised a set of stressed and unstressed

syllables, were investigated. The speech sounds of short sentences, each including three to five stressed syllables,

spoken by 20 native speakers were used. The following definitions of the rhythm segment were adopted for

comparative judgment: a stressed syllable and succeeding weak syllable sequence; preceding weak syllable

sequence and a stressed syllable; a stressed syllable and a half of preceding and succeeding weak syllable

sequences; and the interval between adjacent stressed syllables. The measurement based on the detailed

acoustical analysis showed that the duration of each segment by the native speakers was distributed around a

peak at about 0.7 second, which was considered to be a target rhythmic period. Some segments, which include

the secondary stressed syllables, were distributed separately around a half of the target period. However, they

could not be put closer to the main distribution, by exchanging the secondary stressed syllable for the primary

one or weak syllable. For the universal description of the rhythm structure, the duration of the rhythm segment

was approximated by a series of the target periods into which a half period was interpolated irregularly.

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Q-2 Constructing a Vocabulary Test to Predict Learners’ Proficiency Levels

Norifumi Ueda, Eiichiro Tsutsui, Yusuke Kondo, Michiko Nakano

L2 vocabulary tests have been produced based on the presupposition, ‘the more frequently used words will be

the more easily learnt’, proposed by Palmer (1917, p. 123). Meara (1992a) showed the correlation between

knowledge on words and word frequency levels: that is, the more words the learner knows, the higher the

possibility becomes that these words can belong to the high frequency levels. Meara (1992b) created vocabulary

tests to examine the leaner’s vocabulary level. These tests were based on word frequency levels. Meara

mentioned that it is not always ‘the case that more advance learners have bigger vocabularies than less advanced

ones’ (p.4).

This study examine three-folds: (1) the more advanced learners have more vocabulary knowledge than less

advanced ones, (2) whether vocabularies can become more difficult for the learners at the same proficiency level

even if those come from the same frequency level, but are different parts of speech, (3) whether vocabularies can

become more difficult for the learners at the same proficiency level even if those come from the same frequency

level and parts of speech, but contain different lexical structures.

We created a vocabulary test based on the word frequency level according to JACET 8000, a

frequency-based word list. Japanese university students participated in the experiment. The participants were

asked to answer each item. The results were analyzed based on Latent Rank Theory. The test scores from this

experiment were also compared to those from other English proficiency test.

The results indicated: (1) more advance learners tend to have bigger vocabularies than less advanced ones,

(2) the learners show some differences in knowledge on the same frequency-level vocabularies according to the

kinds of part of speech and lexical structures.

Q-3 How the Asian Students Make Requests in an Online Synchronous Discussion?

Akiko Watanabe

This paper examines how Chinese and Japanese university students carry out their making requests during the

discussions in a synchronous computer mediated communication (CMC) system. The research questions in the

paper are to find out whether or not Asian university students have any characteristics of making their requests in

a synchronous computer mediated communication. If so, in what situations do the Asian university students

attempt to make requests? What kind of requests do they attempt to utilize? In synchronous computer mediated

communication (CMC), the study (Watanabe 2009) demonstrated that Japanese university students tended to

evaluate themselves as receptive rather than expressive during the synchronous online discussions through their

course work. Asian people generally have been regarded as collectivists, with concerns about hearting the other’s

feeling and minimizing imposition, whereas individualists seem to have a tendency to focus on clarity (Min -Sun

Kim, 2005 cited in Martin and Nakayama, 2010). As the Asian students are supposed to categorize as

collectivists, it could be therefore expected that there is a frequent use of receptive expressions as such towards

making requests during the online discussions. Asian people in recent young generation, however, has been said

to be slightly different in the way they communicate. That is to say, there is a possibility that the Asian people in

young generation may communicate more expressively (e.g., making a statement with clarity). The purpose of

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the paper therefore is to figure out characteristics of the Asian university students’ ways of making their requests

in a synchronous computer mediated communication (CMC) context. In order to examine their characteristics,

utterances of each student in a small group are audio recorded and transcribed. The result shows that there is a

tendency that the requests made by the Japanese student are more indirect compared to the ones made by the

Chinese students. Several reasons for this result could be considered. As the number of the proportion between

Chinese students and Japanese students was not equal in a group, it may affect their word choice in a situated

context when making requests. In addition, the extent of the closeness among particular students in a group and

their language proficiency may have an effect on their ways of requests.

Q-4 Degree Centralities, Closeness Centralities, and Dependency Distances of Different Genres

of Texts

Masanori Oya

This study investigates whether the directed acyclic graph representations of the typed-dependency trees for the

sentences (typed-dependency DAGs) in different genres of texts show different distribution of their degree

centralities, closeness centralities and dependency distances. Oya (2010) showed that small-scale corpora of

different genres of texts have different distributions of degree centralities and closeness centralities, and Oya

(2011) showed that the same corpora have different distributions of dependency distances. This study uses a

corpus larger than these corpora used in Oya (2010) and Oya (2011) in terms of the number of sentences, and

wider in terms of genres. The corpus used in this study is the manually annotated sub corpus of American

National Corpus (MASC 500k). This corpus contains approximately 500,000 words of contemporary American

English, drawn from Open American National Corpus (OANC) (Ide and Suderman 2004). Original MASC 500k

contains various kinds of manually-annotated tags such as sentence boundaries, token, lemma, POSs, noun and

verb chunks, and named entities. MASC 500k covers a wide range of genres: newspapers, fictions, non-fictions,

technical reports, short fictions taken from a website Ficlet (now closed), travel guides, essays, government

documents, jokes, blogs, emails, spam emails, movie scripts, speeches, and debates. In this study, the raw texts in

each of the genres without tags (downloaded as a data-only file from the website of ANC:

http://www.anc.org/MASC/Download.html) are parsed by Stanford Parser, and the degree centrality, closeness

centrality and dependency distance of the parse-output typed-dependency DAGs for the sentences in the texts are

calculated automatically by scripts written in Ruby, in order to see whether the different genres of texts have

different distributions of degree centralities, closeness centralities, and dependency distances. The results show

that different genres of texts show different distribution of degree centrality, closeness centrality and dependency

distance. The sentences in the subsections Fiction, Ficlets and Jokes have the mean degree centralities and

closeness centralities which are larger than those in other sections, and the mean dependency distances which are

shorter than those in other sections.

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Q-5 The Contribution of Lexical Access and Working Memory to FL Reading and Incidental

Vocabulary Learning

Feifei Han

This presentation reports an ongoing research project, which investigates the two competing hypotheses in FL

reading: whether inefficient lexical access (LA) and small working memory (WM) inhibits text comprehension

and learning of new words (inhibition hypothesis) or whether readers could use strategies to compensate for

processing problems so that text comprehension and incidental word learning are not influenced much

(compensation hypothesis). While verbal efficiency theory suggests that inefficiency in lower-level processing

inhibits text comprehension. Similarly, the efficiency in word processing in reading might free up WM to direct

readers’ attention to new words encountered in reading. However, on the other hand, Compensatory Encoding

Model predicts that readers beyond the beginning level are constantly involved in using compensatory

mechanism (i.e. behaviours and strategies) to counter inefficient LA and small WM, and under the normal

reading conditions where no time constraint is put on the reader, they can achieve good comprehension by

simply spending more time on reading. In a similar vein, it could be possible that readers with poorer lower-level

processing are able to use more strategies to compensate for the inefficiency in lower-level processing and their

incidental vocabulary learning during reading would not be influenced much. To examine the above mentioned

two hypotheses, 404 Chinese university students were asked to perform on a computerized LA task and an

operation span task for WM. Besides, they were required to read two texts each in untimed and timed reading.

Each text contained eight pseudowords and after completed reading comprehension questions, students were

tested on the incidental learning of the pseudowords. A series of correlation and multiple regression analyses

were performed to examine the contribution of LA and WM to reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary

learning in the two reading conditions. The results showed that while LA and WM made small contributions to

comprehension in timed reading, LA was not significantly related to comprehension in untimed reading. For

incidental vocabulary learning, LA made small contributions to incidental vocabulary learning in both reading

conditions, whereas WM only made a small contribution in untimed reading. The results are discussed with the

two hypotheses.

Q-6 An Experimental Use of Clickers for a Large Class

Michiko Nakano, Satoshi Yoshida, Kaori Koizumi, Ryo Niijima and Yutaka Ishii

Not all the classes are held in a computer room and classrooms with response analyzers are rare. Yet, it is

becoming popular as well as pedagogically meaningful to receive immediate responses from students, in order to

increase the amount of classroom involvement from the students. We have run four clicker use experiments

among 180 students. The questionnaire items are concerned with the use of mobile e-learning, motivational

enhancement as well as social skills in relation to Cross-Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL), since all the

participants have some experience of CCDL activities and we are about to introduce mobile learning in

Discussion tutorial English.

In the first run, we explained the purpose of the clicker experiments and distributed clickers, taking 15

minutes. We asked 22 questionnaire items. It took 40 minutes to finish the task. It took longer than expected and

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we decided to reduce the number of questionnaire items on the second run onward. We presented 11 items,

taking 25 minutes, including the clicker distribution time. The use of Clicker was useful, since each time the item

distribution was presented immediately on the projector. In this presentation, we will analyze the questionnaire

items related to the use of mobile learning, motivation, social skills in relation to Cross-Cultural Distance

Learning (CCDL).

Q-7 A Preliminary Study of Strategic Vocabulary Teaching: Is it the right time to renew the

JACET 8000?

Eiichiro Tsutsui

Vocabulary plays a significant role in English teaching and learning. As Nation (2008) among other educators

points out, five percent of unknown words are likely to impede reading comprehension. Therefore, in order to

optimize students’ learning, it is very important to monitor students' current vocabulary levels.

In order to measure vocabulary level, JACET 8000 is used. "The JACET 8000 is a radically new word list

designed for all English learners in Japan", say Uemura and Ishikawa (2004). Those living in 2012 may feel this

is not "new" anymore. However, present language teachers still make good use of the vocabulary list, and I'm

one of them.

This paper will be a preliminary study to investigate whether or not the vocabulary difficulty perceived by

university students will match the JACET 8000 level. Data were collected from 120 University students. They

were asked to rate the level of word difficulty and fill out the corresponding translation.

One of my research questions is how the perceived level of word difficulty can interact with JACET 8000

levels. Another research question is to examine whether or not supposedly low-level words can be translated

more properly.

In conclusion, we will stress the importance of strategic vocabulary learning. Owing to online translation

websites, students now no longer have to look up each word in the dictionary. They can have all the unknown

words translated at one time without any effort. These sites are kind enough to tell them the primary meaning

and its auditory information. An inevitable consequence is more and more learners will be more dependent on

ICT benefits and start learning vocabulary in a careless and shallow manner. While acknowledging the

convenience and advantage of ICT use in learning, we have to find a way of teaching vocabulary more in depth.

Q-8 L2 Learners’ Motivation for Learning English in Computer-Medicated Communication

Activities

Satoshi Yoshida and Michiko Nakano

This study investigates students’ motivation for learning English in a series of computer-mediated

communication (CMC) activities provided for tertiary-level English classes. The purpose of this study is

two-fold: (1) to examine the types of motivational predispositions toward the CMC activities by means of

questionnaire-based survey and (2) to discuss the motivational differences among the students in terms of

averaged factor scores computed for each English class. In order to delineate the motivational differences, we

adopted the theoretical framework of Self-Determination Theory (SDT: e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci,

2000, 2002) and discussed the relevant motivational issues in terms of three types of motivation (i.e., intrinsic

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motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation) as well as the notions of three types of basic psychological

needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) that have been theorized to nurture the human motivation.

Moreover, we drew on the subtypes of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation subsumed in SDT so as to further describe

the motivational differences. The questionnaire used in this study was developed on the basis of the Language

Learning Orientations Scale (Noels, Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand, 2000; see also Park, 2006) and Academic

Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992, 1993). The participants were 365 Japanese university students who

were enrolled in 21 different English classes, each of which introduced the CMC activities as a part of their

course or extra-curricular activities. In order to discuss the motivational differences among the participants, we

compared the averaged factor scores computed for each of 21 English classes. The results revealed that students’

motivational predispositions toward the activities can be roughly divided into three types: (1) predisposition

toward autonomous learners, (2) predisposition toward externally regulated learners, and (3) “Others”. The

results of class comparisons indicated that the students enrolled in elective types of English classes tended to

have the predisposition toward autonomous learners, while those in compulsory types were likely to be

demotivated by the instructors, as found in our pilot experiments (e.g., Yoshida, 2009).

Q-9 Acoustic Characteristics of English Diphthongs Produced by Japanese Learners

Aya Kitagawa

This research aims to investigate English diphthongs produced by Japanese learners of English. Compared to the

studies on the learners’ production of English monothongs , that of diphthongs has been less focused on. This

study, therefore, analyzed five English diphthongs, /ei, ai, oi, ou, au/, using 30 Japanese learners of English. The

subjects had never lived in an English speaking country or taken a special English pronunciation training. Four

more diphthongs in British English which contain a schwa as their second component were excluded from the

analyses because they are not categorized as diphthongs in American English, a schwa being articulated as /r/.

The subjects were asked to read a passage, “Arthur the Rat.” This passage was used in the experiment for the

two reasons: it is a phonetically-balanced passage; it provides the data of sentences, not citation utterances, so

that it is possible to observe the phenomena in a more common situation where languages are used. The target

diphthongs were acoustically analyzed, where F1 and F2 values of each diphthong in the passage were measured

at 5 equally-spaced locations in order to examine gliding from the first component to the second component. It

was hypothesized the subjects would substitute /ee/ and /oo/ for some /ei/ and /ou/ respectively. This prediction

was grounded on the phenomena that some of /ei/ and all of /ou/ included in English words are each pronounced

as /ee/ and /oo/ when Japanese borrows words from English, as “cake” and “home” are pronounced as /keeki/

and /hoomu/ in Japanese. Also, these two diphthongs are made up of a smaller glide than any other diphthong,

which probably makes it more difficult for Japanese learners of English to realize them authentically.

Q-10 Reaction toward False Kanji by Native and Non-native Speakers of Japanese

Yoko Okita

This study examined how native speakers of Japanese and non-native speakers of Japanese react to Pseudo,

Wrong, and Vague Kanji (Chinese character in Japanese). The non-native speakers did not learn Chinese

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characters in their mother language. They have studied Japanese at least for one year. Around 200 Kanji were

introduced in-class. Their proficiency in Japanese ranges from beginning to intermediate. Kanji consists of

several graphic parts and each part should be correctly positioned in a character. Especially, the position of a

semantic radical is fixed. Pseudo Kanji follows correct positioning rules; however, combination of parts is wrong.

Wrong Kanji does not follow positioning rules. The position of a semantic radical was reversed left-right or

upside-down. Some graphic features become distinctive features in Kanji. Length of upper and lower lines or the

position of a dot changes the meaning of a character. Vague Kanji does not have such distinctive features. For

example, length of upper and lower lines is equal. Fifteen characters of each group, total 45 characters were

presented on a computer screen. The participants were asked to decide if a character is true (exist) or not true

(does not exist) by pushing a key. The participants’ reaction and reaction time were recorded. The correct rates of

native speakers were significantly higher than those of non-native speakers. The correct rate of Wrong Kanji in

native speakers was 100%, whereas the average correct rate of Wrong Kanji in non-native speakers was 57%.

The position of a semantic radical is never change and crucial to get the meaning of a character. It seems that

non-native speakers did not realize the importance of the semantic radical positioning even after exposed to 200

Kanji. The importance of the semantic radical should be more emphasized in teaching Kanji.

There was no significant difference in the correct rates between three stimulus Kanji groups in non-native

speakers. Interestingly the correct rate of Vague Kanji was significantly lower than that of Wrong Kanji in the

native speakers. The native speakers did not seem to pay much attention to distinctive graphic feature of Kanji

and depend on the context to get the meaning of Kanji in real reading.


3-F-2 Suggestions for Glossary and Footnote in Graded Readers

He Mu and Yap Foong Ha

Graded readers are texts written by means of lexical, structural, and information control (Hedge, 1985; Hill,

2008). Reading programs using graded readers show that graded readers build reading speed, lexical access,

reading fluency, and the ability when reading to move from working with words to working with ideas (Waring,

1997). Various series of graded readers published by major international publishers serve as evidence of the

growing popularity of graded readers.

One of the primary merits of graded readers is to release the lexical burden on the readers. However, an

investigation across the various series of graded readers published by the major international publishers shows

that three situations can cause unnecessary lexical burden to the readers. In the first situation, non-standard forms

of words instead of the standard forms are presented to the readers but the non-standard words are not glossed or

footnoted (e.g., Buck is used instead of dollar but not glossed or footnoted.). In the second situation, the new

words are sometimes explained by more difficult words in the glossaries and footnotes (e.g., Skull is explained as

cranium.). In the third situation, simple words are glossed or footnoted instead of the more difficult ones (e.g.,

Mean are footnoted instead of solitary).

We suggest that the words which are not familiar to readers in a particular context need not necessarily be

eliminated but could be glossed or footnoted in graded readers. We argue this because the lexical diversity across

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different contexts also provides opportunity for lexical learning through reading graded readers. Findings from

our extensive reading program using graded readers support that readers benefit from being exposed to

diversified lexis in grade readers.

Session 3-J (VIP Room 3: 14:00-15:30)

3-J-1 EAP in English-medium Universities: the role of the teacher

James Arthurs

There are a number of ways of looking at the role of language tutors at an English-medium university in Asia.

They can be seen as part of the teaching body, not responsible for delivering academic courses, but for delivering

ESAP (English for Specific Academic Purposes) courses which may resemble a diluted version of the academic

courses which students will meet later. Again, seen as part of the teaching body, they may deliver courses in

English for general academic reading, writing and discussion. Another view of their role places them alongside

students as they enter an unfamiliar environment, a university , and one which speaks a different language and

may be a (partly) foreign institution. Here, they may be seen as mentors in the area of study skills, or in assisting

the students to come to terms with their new foreign environment, especially if the university has an overseas

partner. In this role they work alongside the students supporting them as they prepare for or begin their academic

studies. Writing centres available to students while they are pursuing their academic courses can also cast the

language tutor in this supporting role.

Each of the above roles may bring conflicting demands which require resolution. An ESAP tutor may have of

present subject-specific material which is at or beyond the boundaries of his/her competence to teach. Both the

tutor and the students are aware of this. How does the work of the ESAP tutor mesh with that of the academic

tutor or lecturer who the students will meet later (or concurrently)? Are language tutors prepared for the role of

mentor and for developing study skills and academic survival skills in their students? This paper will examine

recent research and practice to discern how language tutors fit into the scheme of learning and teaching in an

English-medium university, and how their role can best be adapted to the benefit of the university community.

3-J-2 Transfer Climate of Second-language English for Academic Purposes Writing—A Case

Study into Junior English Majors in Tsinghua University

Wei Ran, Zhang Shuang, Wu Yanshuang and Zhou Yifan

A fundamental goal of EAP education is to stimulate learning transfer, which is defined as the impact of

“learning in one context or with one set of materials…on performance in another context or with another set of

materials” (Perkins & Salomon, 1994). However, learning transfer can be influenced by the learners’ perceptions

of features of their academic setting, termed as “transfer climate” in James (2009). This paper intends to explore

the learning transfer of EAP writing among Chinese students in three contexts: intra-disciplinary context,

cross-disciplinary context, and cross-language context, focusing on extent of transfer and the possible factors of

transfer climate that can facilitate or retard the transfer process. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and

writing sample analysis are used in the case studies of 13 undergraduates in a large, urban, research-oriented

university in mainland China. The findings indicate that writing skills did transfer in all the three types of

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contexts, but in various degrees, and diverse climate factors, such as instructional context, task similarity and

alternative support, contributed to this variation. Hopefully, this paper could offer teachers suggestions on

stimulating learning transfer and encouraging students to take full advantage of EAP courses in order to benefit

their writing in other academic contexts.

3-J-3 Paragraph-level Errors in Chinese Undergraduate EFL Learners’ Compositions: A Cohort

Study

Meihua Liu and Gehui Wang

The present study investigated the paragraph-level errors in 90 English compositions produced by 30 Chinese

undergraduate non-English majors on three tasks during eight weeks. Analyses of these errors and the survey

data yielded the following main findings: (1) Among the four categories of paragraph-level errors, errors in

paragraph development accounted for the largest percentage, followed by errors in paragraph coherence, errors

in paragraph unity, and inconsistency in point of view. This pattern was generally observed for the distribution of

the errors in each individual task; (2) the errors generally tended to increase across tasks. Errors in paragraph

development in particular increased statistically significantly in the last two tasks; (3) the errors of all categories

were generally inversely correlated with the students’ writing performance, among which errors in paragraph

development were significantly inversely related to the latter, and (4) several reasons were identified for the

errors such as the lack of writing practice and the influence of Chinese. Thus, it can be concluded that

paragraph-level errors are often persistent in students’ English writing and are closely related to the quality of the

writing. They hence deserve further research.

Session 3-K (Function Room: 14:00-15:30)

3-K-1 A Study of Coordinator Loss in Chinese University Students’ EFL Writing

Zhu Yang

This paper reports an empirical study of coordinator loss in Chinese university students’ EFL writing.

Coordinator loss refers to the failure to connect two adjacent clauses of identical syntactic function with an

appropriate coordinator (“and”, “or”, “but”, etc.), resulting in the phenomenon of “run-on sentence” or “the

comma fault”. To delve into the characteristics of coordinator loss as exhibited in Chinese university students’

EFL writing, an ad hoc corpus consisting of 137 English essays written by English-major sophomores and

juniors is analyzed. Results show a moderately high frequency of coordinator loss and reveal a distributional

pattern of coordinator loss across several categories based upon Halliday & Hasan’s (1976) semantic framework

of coordinator. A discussion of the distributional pattern with reference to the linguistic culture of the writers’ L1

(i.e. Chinese) as well as developmental factors is made. It is argued that the linguistic pattern of “coupling” in

Chinese figures as a more significant influence on the emergence and distribution of coordinator loss than have

ever been known. Accordingly, some pedagogical implications of this study for the teaching of university-level

EFL writing are also proposed.

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3-K-2 The Roles of Visual Semiotics in Learning Science through English at Tertiary Level

Pun Kwok Hung

This presentation explores the different modes of visual semiotics and their ways to construct knowledge in

science through English at tertiary level. I will employ two frameworks: Bateman’s (2008) GeM base model to

outline the expected layout and structural components in science textbooks; Matthiessen et al.’s (2010)

context-based typology to inform the roles of different visual semiotics in constructing their located

socio-semiotic processes under various science genres, particularly in explanations and procedures. The roles

could fall into one of the eight processes: expounding, reporting, recreating, sharing, doing, recommending and

enabling. The functions of visual displays in these scientific texts and their relationships with language are also

explored to understand how the complementary of visual displays and language help students to master science

content along their learning journey from junior to senior level.

Previous studies suggest the way to model the complementarity of language and image in texts is through the

nature of semantic linkage between the two modes, either their cohesive relation or their dependency. Royce

(2002) drew on Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) work on “cohesive ties” in English, more specifically on lexical

cohesive ties. Others like Martinec & Salway (2005) took the concept of different types of clause relations from

functional grammar. They said the status between text and image can be equal or unequal and such semantic

linkage can be further categorized into elaboration, extension and enhancement. However, the complementarity

is more complicated than any common forms of semantic relations. Pun Kwok Hung, Jack 8th International

Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary Level Beijing, August 21 ? 23, 2012 3 They do not come along with

single semantic linkage. Instead, they could present a set of different relations at a time to construct science

meanings.

For example in a procedure text, images at each step visualize the language elements. They visualize the

‘un-verbalized’ parts that compose the experiment (e.g. lab tools: glass rod, beaker, their placements and

arrangements) but rarely visualize the specified conditions at a particular step. The conditions include manner

(slowly), frequency (time to time), degree of doing (if…cloudy), additional procedures (dip a glass rod) and

explanation. Language always ‘steps in’ to verbalize these extra details through the caption of images. Lemke

(2002) notes this is due to the distribution of labor between image and text in meaning construction. They may

represent different areas of meaning but the interaction between these two certainly creates a synergistic

construction in such meaning-making processes. A major difference between visual displays and language in a

procedure is that images usually carry given information along the entire lab procedures while language tends to

‘mark’ or provide new information about specific condition or manner in a single step. This is different from

Kress’s (2003) analysis of a physics textbook about ‘electronics’; he notes that the diagrams in science usually

represent the core information of the event while language carries limited information in simple sentences about

the event. To conclude, this presentation will provide more descriptions about the uses of different visual display

in educational context and raise the importance of learning science through multimodality. This will enhance

textbook publishers, education professionals and teachers to develop strategy for addressing teaching and

learning challenges of using visual displays in science.

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3-K-3 Academic English: A Post Colonialist Criticism’s Practice

Xiuli Li

Academic English does not mean boring. The input of the ideas of post-colonialism such as identity,

deconstruction, the reconstruction of meaning, challenge and response can make academic English a fresh and

interesting course in which both students English writing and speaking skills are improved. This paper tries to

present how a Chinese English teacher with a post-colonial criticism intellectual background input the basic

concept in her integrative academic English course. Her practice may help reform the academic English course.

Colloquium (Function Room: 15:30-17:30)

Vocabulary Learning and Assessment in the Chinese EFL Context

Colloquium Chair: Professor David Qian

This colloquium, with complementary research foci, sets out to explore the status quo of vocabulary learning and

assessment in the Chinese EFL context with a special view to charting the future research in this area. The

colloquium is ushered in by an overview of the models of vocabulary knowledge and how these models have

influenced existing vocabulary tests and might inform vocabulary learning and assessment in China. Following a

panoramic review, there are three studies querying vocabulary learning and assessment across multiple layers.

The first study investigates the vocabulary assessment, either explicit or implicit, of Tsinghua University Exit

English Proficiency Test. The second study, serving as a follow-up counterpart, probes into the measures of

vocabulary in relation to learners’ writing proficiency. The third study takes a broader view of streamlining EFL

learner word lists across different learning stages.

Paper 1: Modelling and Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge of EFL Learners: An Overview

David Qian

Evidence from research shows that vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in various aspects of EFL

learners’ learning and production of the target language, for example, in reading (Qian, 1999, 2002), listening

(Stæhr, 2009), and writing (Qian & Shi, 2011). Because of the importance of vocabulary knowledge, it would be

helpful if research can help EFL teachers better understand how vocabulary knowledge can be conceptualized at

the operational as well as theoretical levels, what are available measures that can help classroom teachers assess

their students’ vocabulary knowledge, and how vocabulary knowledge is assessed in existing major international

and domestic English language proficiency tests in the Chinese context.

Five aspects of vocabulary assessment will be briefed: 1) an examination of existing models of vocabulary

knowledge; 2) a brief overview on the receptive and productive English vocabulary tests; 3) a meta-analysis of

the vocabulary assessment in the prevailing international English proficiency tests; 4) a meta-analysis of the

vocabulary assessment in the prevailing high-stakes domestic English proficiency tests in China; and 5) future

directions: How can research inform the vocabulary assessment in the general Chinese EFL context?

Paper 2: Assessing Chinese EFL University Students’ Vocabulary in an English Proficiency Test

Wenxia Zhang

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This paper aims to investigate how vocabulary is assessed in an English proficiency test for Chinese EFL

university students. It will first provide, through an analysis of the test paper, a brief description of the test and

how vocabulary is assessed in the test. Findings from two focus group interviews will then be reported on how

students perceive the role of vocabulary in their EFL learning and performance in the test in general and the

writing section in particular. It is hoped that an introduction to the assessment of vocabulary in the Chinese EFL

context with a special reference to the EFL university students in mainland China and the discussion of the issues

concerning the role of vocabulary in their EFL learning and test performance will shed some light on our

understanding of the nature of vocabulary assessment and hopefully how the assessment of vocabulary can be

better integrated in an EFL proficiency test in the Chinese EFL context.

Paper 3: Roles of Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Assessing EFL Learners’ Writing Proficiency

Linda Lin

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the relationship between a learner’s depth of word

knowledge and his/her writing proficiency.

Depth of vocabulary knowledge refers to the “amount or extensiveness” of knowledge of each individual

word (Schoonen & Verhallen, 2008). This extensiveness defines the quality of a learner’s lexical knowledge, or

how well s/he knows a word; and can therefore service as a more precise indicator of learners’ language skills

than a learner’s vocabulary size. Its association with other language skills, e.g. L2 reading and listening, has been

studied by Qian (2002) and Staehr (2009) respectively. This paper sets to explore its relationship with another

important language modality, L2 writing. Three hypothesises were proposed for this purpose: (1) EFL learners’

depth of word knowledge correlates with their writing proficiency; (2) compared with vocabulary size, depth of

lexical knowledge is a better predictor for the writing proficiency of EFL learners; (3) learning approaches

adopted by different learners affect the level of association between depth of vocabulary knowledge and writing

proficiency.

To test the above hypothesises, the present study invited 150 students from the Hong Kong Polytechnic

University to participate in two vocabulary tests and one writing test. A corpus was built from scripts of the

writing test to allow for quantitative examination (lexical variation and lexical frequency profile) and qualitative

investigation (corpus analysis) into the learners’ writing. Results from the present study show that learners’ depth

of word knowledge makes a unique contribution in predicting L2 learners’ writing over and above the

contribution made by size of vocabulary, although the contribution level is not as high as that in predicating

reading or listening ability.

Paper 4: Profiling Chinese EFL Learner Word Lists: Are They Streamlined?

Ernest Pan

Vocabulary learning, as argued by Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1982, 1985) is a progressive process; therefore,

EFL learner word lists at various stages should be streamlined. This paper aims to profile the prevailing EFL

word lists for Chinese learners against the word lists for general (British National Corpus Word List by Leech et

al., 2001) and academic purposes (Academic Word List, Coxhead, 2000) to investigate respectively the extent to

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which they are streamlined and whether the expected academic vocabulary is present in the Chinese tertiary EFL

learner word lists. By profiling the observed word lists in the reference word lists, it is found that generally the

Chinese EFL learner word lists of assumedly ascending order of difficulty are streamlined at various learning

developmental stages. The Chinese EFL tertiary learner word lists also feature the compilers’ consideration of

academic words. However, there are flaws regarding the transitions from the secondary EFL learner word list to

the one for starting-phase tertiary EFL learners. Part of the reason for the lists failing to be streamlined could be

the teaching content variation or the shifted foci in the learning material selection, yet there might also be the

possibility of insufficient consideration of streamlining or lack of liaisons on the part of the word list compilers.

It is suggested that EFL word lists should not only be streamlined, as accorded with the claim of progressive

learning in Input Hypothesis but also consider presenting individual words in phraseologies for a fuller

manifestation of word use.

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